In late September Optus admitted to being the victim of an enormous cyber-attack that had resulted in the disclosure of private information for a huge number of Australians.

Since the attack people have been asking how something of this magnitude could have happened and how Optus could have allowed itself to be open to such a big offensive.

In today’s episode we’ll be asking what exactly happened with the Optus cyber-attack and more importantly, could it happen again?

To answer those questions, we will be chatting with CK Chim, the field CSO of the Asia-Pacific region for Cybereason and Eric Nagel, GM of the Asia-Pacific region for Cybereason

In this episode Chim and Eric share:

• Their backgrounds in cyber security and offensive
• The meaning of EDR and XDR and what they do
• What Cybereason uncovered about offensive hacking in Asia targeting telecommunication companies
• The scary response governments and companies have when they are told about security issues
• What happened in the Optus attack from a security perspective
• Their thoughts on how other companies can act to ensure it doesn’t happen
• The frightening reason why we could see a second Optus attack
• Their prediction about the number of ransomware attacks in the future

Key Quotes

“Lightning almost always strikes twice. There’s no guarantee there is not another group inside the telco today.”

“The number of attacks quadrupled through the pandemic.”

“Not all companies or government will proactively respond or ask for help, unless they were proven to be compromised.”

Find out more about Cybereason

You can find out about everything Cybereason via their website: https://www.cybereason.com/

You can also look at their report uncovering Asia telco hacks from 2021 that we discussed in the episode here: https://www.cybereason.com/blog/research/deadringer-exposing-chinese-threat-actors-targeting-major-telcos

**Maysaffron have worked and lead an investment previously into Cybereason

Follow Cybersquawk the podcast online to continue the cyber security discussion:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cybersquawk/about/

About Cybersquawk

After working on Cybersecurity opportunities for a couple of years and despite having experts in the team, the Cybersquawk founders saw how technical heavy information in this space was. As this is a problem and responsibility that affects everyone Cybersquawk has been created to democratise the Cyber conversation. Created by generalists for generalists.

Series 1 covers high level issues and considerations, threats and recent hacks and some technologies attempting to solve the problems for large and small operators.

About Maysaffron www.maysaffron.com

Maysaffron, established 2015, is an investment professional led firm that connects companies and funds with the Middle East and Asia Pacific. In 2021 the firm commenced direct investments in future themes. Cybersecurity is an area of focus for the firm and its partners.

Maysaffron: Overview | LinkedIn

Host

Ellecia Saffron | LinkedIn

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