Security News
Australia, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom have signed a new defence and technology-sharing pact. Dubbed AUKUS, the headline item of the pact is assistance from the UK and US to help Australia build nuclear-powered submarines that are interoperable with their own fleets.
Tanium announced that its cloud-based endpoint visibility and control solution, Tanium as a Service, is now available via local data centers in Canada, the UK, Brazil and Australia to support customers. By delivering TaaS via local data centers, Tanium is able to provide customers in these regions with enhanced TaaS performance, better support for their compliance programs and high-fidelity endpoint data to inform their critical IT decisions.
The world's largest meat distributor shut down some operations in both the United States and Australia over the Memorial Day weekend after a cyberattack on its IT systems that could have a significant effect on the food supply chain if not resolved quickly. Though JBS did not disclose which of its U.S. operations were affected, in Australia JBS shut down operations across the states of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, according to JBS Australia CEO Brent Eastwood told Beef Central.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Australian Cyber Security Centre are warning of an ongoing Avaddon ransomware campaign targeting organizations from an extensive array of sectors in the US and worldwide. "The Australian Cyber Security Centre is aware of an ongoing ransomware campaign utilizing the Avaddon Ransomware malware [.] actively targeting Australian organisations in a variety of sectors," the ACSC added [PDF].
Australia has decided that six-year-old children need education on cyber-security, even as it removes other material from the national curriculum. A newly revised draft of the national curriculum for children aged five to sixteen, launched yesterday, added a new strand titled "Considering privacy and security" that "Involves students developing appropriate techniques for managing data, which is personal, and effectively implementing security protocols."
The first "Quad summit" of leaders from Australia, India, Japan, and the USA has announced the group will create a "Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group". The joint "Spirit of the Quad" statment said the group will: "Respond to the economic and health impacts of COVID-19, combat climate change, and address shared challenges, including in cyber space, critical technologies, counterterrorism, quality infrastructure investment, and humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief as well as maritime domains."
Oxfam Australia has confirmed a data breach after suffering a cyberattack and their donor databases put up for sale on a hacker forum in January. Last month, BleepingComputer was the first to report that a threat actor was selling a stolen Oxfam Australia database containing 1.7 million user records.
Oxfam Australia investigates a suspected data breach after a threat actor claimed to be selling their database belonging on a hacker forum. Last week, BleepingComputer learned of a threat actor claiming to be selling a database containing the Oxfam Australia contact and donor information for 1.7 million people.
Australia's consumer watchdog launched legal action against Facebook on Wednesday, alleging the social media giant "Misled" thousands of Australians by collecting user data from a free VPN service advertised as private. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has accused Facebook and two of its subsidiaries - Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc - of misleading people who downloaded its virtual private network app Onavo Protect, by collecting and using their "Very detailed and valuable personal activity data".
The United States and Australia on Friday announced a partnership for the continuous development of a virtual cyber training range. The Cyber Training Capabilities Project Arrangement, which was signed on November 3, results in the incorporation of Australian Defense Force feedback into the U.S. Cyber Command's simulated training domain, the Persistent Cyber Training Environment.