President’s Message

User awareness vital in the fight against cyber crime

MICHAEL ESPOSITO, EDITOR

When a video emerged online of Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskiy seemingly telling his soldiers to lay down their weapons and return home, it signalled a new frontier of the information war, or to put it more accurately, the disinformation war.

For the video was in fact a “deep fake”. A deep fake is a video that replaces a person’s face with a computer-generated likeness of that face, for the purpose of making it look like the person said or did something that they didn’t actually do.

Fortunately, the quality of the Zelenskyy deep fake was not convincing enough, and was swiftly debunked, but with the pace of technology, we may only be a few years away from not being able to tell a real video from a deep fake, the consequences of which cannot be fully fathomed.

Anyone who has had any experience of social media, especially during the past two years, would have some awareness of the toxic effect the spread of disinformation can have on public discourse, personal relationships, and democracy.

Disinformation is also a cybersecurity issue. Users are targeted via phishing scams – correspondence which looks authentic but designed to give hackers access to personal and valuable information.

Like deep fakes, these scams are becoming more sophisticated and realistic. No doubt many of us have received emails from so-called clients, or text messages about delivery packages (no doubt preying on the covid-inspired online shopping boom) asking us to follow a link or provide personal information.

It is more important than ever for businesses to ensure they have robust cybersecurity systems in place. Reviewing and upgrading cybersecurity infrastructure is worth the investment, as the costs of a cyber attack could be catastrophic.

As important as cybersecurity technology is user awareness training, as cyber attacks, such as phishing, rely on human weakness to succeed.

It is why I consider this cybersecurity edition of The Bulletin to be such an important one. It contains a number of articles with great practical advice about how to protect valuable data and minimise the risk of debilitating cyber attacks.

As cyber attacks continue to become more prevalent and damaging, it is just not viable to think “it won’t happen to me”. It most likely will, and the extent of the impact on you and your fi rm will largely depend on how seriously you took your cybersecurity. B

IN THIS ISSUE

FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY

Do our privacy laws measure up?

RANSWOMWARE ATTACKS

Legal implications for lawyers

DJOKOVIC V AUSTRALIA

Ministerial powers to cancel visas