Mitigate Risk articles

It wasn't that long ago that many companies heavily relied on software such as Microsoft Excel to help provide reporting and analytics to manage their business.  Working through tabs, filtering data sets and looking at brightly coloured graphs was part of many Monday sales meetings. That's if you had colour toner; otherwise, you looked at monochrome reporting that all looked the same.  Thankfully, those reporting days are behind us.  Today you can communicate complex information ...

Imagine you've stepped out for your morning coffee. After a frantic morning of back-to-back meetings, you're in a hurry, so you duck quickly into the café across the street. But, as you go to tap your smartphone to pay, it pings. Another email from your boss. It's marked urgent. Swiping away the notification, you're curious. He is out of town at a conference. As you idly wait, you decide to open the email. Your boss ...

Living in a cosmopolitan city like Melbourne, getting complacent is easy. We have had a challenging few years during the pandemic but living in Melbourne, or Australia more broadly, we are a lucky country. That's not to say we don't have our issues and are not immune from threats ranging from natural disasters to cyberattacks.  As you know, Melbourne has experienced two earthquakes in the last few weeks. Fortunately, they have not caused widespread damage ...

You've undoubtedly found yourself in a fire drill when working in a tall office building in Docklands or along Lonsdale Street. You understand how it feels when you hear the first beep, beep, followed by the whoop, whoop. So you know, by working on the 19th floor... it will be a long way down the emergency stairs to the marshalling point.  But here's the thing, practising an evacuation saves lives, and all employees should participate, ...

A client sent me an email from Dubai International Airport. He was very proud of himself as he had worked out how to get onto the Wi-Fi without any support. He even sent me a screenshot of the Wi-Fi connection he was on. I could see straight away it was an open connection, and he was at risk of exposing his data to others on the same Wi-Fi. A quick phone call and we had ...

There has been much discussion recently about Melbourne's local councils introducing changes to rubbish bin collections, including the introduction of a new bin for glass.  So, many households will now have four bins to sort and put out each week.  Depending on where you live, some councils have floated only a fortnightly collection for garbage (aka. the 'red bin'). But for all the talk of sorting, recycling and doing your bit to reduce landfill, no ...

As I sat down to write these tips to manage security vulnerabilities, my smartphone flashed a news notification that criminals had carried out another cyberattack on an Australian company.  A financial institution, no less...Latitude Financial.  Cyberattacks on major Australian companies dominated headlines in late 2022. But, consider how cybercriminals attacked large organisations like Medibank Private and Optus. With the resources they have to manage their IT securely, how were they still exposed?  What does this ...

If there's one thing that's been keeping me up at night more than the thought of running out of coffee, and what is going to happen to the Roy children in Succession, it's the importance of cybersecurity insurance. I mean, who doesn't love a good insurance policy? It's like a security blanket for your digital assets - except way less cuddly and way more necessary. Lately, I've been talking a lot about how in the ...

You're speed walking (... jogging isn't a good idea in the drizzle) up Collins Street towards Parliament station. Quickly you descend underground, heading across the dimly lit concourse towards the Myki ticket gate. You tap your Myki on the reader, and it fails.  "Why does this always happen when you're already late home?" You turn to the side and notice everyone is having the same issue. Someone has made a human error, and Myki rejects all ...

Imagine you’re walking down Hardware Lane at lunch and suddenly receive a text from your CEO asking for help. The text says they are doing customer visits in Northcote and discover a colleague hadn’t provided the promised gift cards.  As they are standing there with the customer, embarrassed, they ask you to pop into Woolies, purchase six $200 gift cards, and text the details immediately. They promise to reimburse you the cost when they return ...