By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

ALL OVER THE WORLD, businesses are reeling from cyberattacks. The most common of these is in the form of ransomware.

What is ransomware? It uses malicious software, otherwise known as malware, which restricts a business computer’s access to files by encrypting them and then the criminal demands a ransom payment.

In other words, crypto criminals using ransomware hold that business hostage until the payment is made.

Bob Huber, chief security officer and head of research at Tenable, said these ransomware attacks were continuing to grow.

“It’s become a business,” Mr Huber told Talking Business. “The effort to start a business, generally considered a learning curve for any enterprise, takes years of effort and expertise. But ransomware, over the course of the last few years, has been an ecosystem that allows you not to have to be an expert to put out ransomware. 

“There are initial access brokers out there and providers and contract services,” he said.

“So I don’t have to be an expert myself to get into the ransomware game. I can actually contract those services out where I don’t have expertise. So, as much as I hate to say it, it’s lowered the barriers for entry to the market for most entities and organisations. It’s just not as difficult as it used to be years ago,” Mr Huber said.

“You can pick and choose the pieces that are already built. So you don’t have to develop the initial access or some novel attack to gain access or foothold to an organisation. They already exist. You can just click and build these things.”

Ransomware drives 38% of attacks

Ransomware has grown so much that Tenable research has found that it’s behind 38% of all cyber attacks.

Mr Huber said the growth of ransomware would continue as there were not that many businesses that are prepared to make the “commensurate investment in defending against ransomware attacks”.

This, he said, often came down to “foundational cyber hygiene”.

“If you think about organisations, whether they be non-profits, charities that don’t have mandates to make the investment … I’m sure they would like to but they compete against other businesses and risks, you know, economic down turn and pandemic, those are risks as well,” he said.

“They have to balance all those risks and determine where cyber fits into their risks and what they’re willing to accept or transfer. And especially for smaller organisations, they can’t make the investment to measure against those types of attacks.”

Remote work facilitates cyber attacks

Mr Huber said much of the growth of ransomware has come with more people working remotely.

“Given the proliferation of remote work… with people working from home and coffee shops and libraries, we found now that people do tend to travel, they still do their work but some of the controls you would traditionally have in an enterprise that [is] tied to certain types of access, through the facility or through a virtual private network, you don’t have that when you move to the coffee shops,” he said.

“There are other technical controls that were developed for a time when we expected folks to be in a facility,” Mr Huber said.

“And as we migrated to a remote workforce, in many cases we’ve had to loosen those controls to afford people to work from wherever to continue operations for the business.” 

www.tenable.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-27-interview-with-bob-huber-from-tenable

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WITH ITS LATEST $4.4 million defence industry order supplied, extended reality systems development company Vection Technologies is steadily extending its growth, expecting another $10m-$21m in additional works and orders being contracted for the new financial year through to 2030.

Vection’s latest supply is to a top 10 global defence contractor using its IntegratedXR arm. It is for mission-critical ICT infrastructure and AI-enabled analytics. Vection entered the Australian market in 2021 with the acquisition of Blank Canvas and its property-focused CGI content capability.

Vection Technologies managing director Gianmarco Biagi said, “Transforming our pilot program into recurring orders within the NATO Tempest supply chain highlights the trust we have built with one of the largest defence contractors in the world. 

“Achieving about $10m in orders strongly validates our technology and is a strong indication that the client will continue with the full program for the additional $21m scheduled for FY26-FY30.”

This supply follows the major defence pilot award announced on March 2, 2023, which flagged that a successful pilot could lead to delivery of a full tender worth up to about $30m.

Vection Technologies is a growing enterprise-focused company that helps businesses – some in defence industries – bridge the physical and digital worlds with strategic fit-for-task technology developments. Vection helps organisations leverage their three-dimensional (3D) data inputs through extended reality (XR) interfaces that foster collaboration and learning, grow sales and add strategic advantages.

This latest solution stack integrates secure ICT infrastructure with Vection’s IntegratedXR platform. As security priorities in Europe become more urgent, Vection’s customer base is expanding these capabilities to oversee and safeguard critical assets.

With the solution stack completed during the pilot phase, Vection is now authorised to complete supply of the solution, as formalised by the order.

Vection Technologies is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with ticker code VR1, and trades on US over-the-counter (OTC) markets under the symbol VCTNY. Vection has Indo-Pacific regional offices in Perth and Sydney.

www.vection-technologies.com

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

RANSOMWARE – a type of malicious software, or malware – designed to block access to a computer system or its data until a ransom is paid, has become prevalent today.

Ransomware attacks in 2024 had a significant financial impact on businesses worldwide. The average cost of a ransomware incident was reported to be around $1.85 million per attack, which includes expenses like downtime, data recovery, and operational disruptions.

According to the latest Tenable survey, ransomware now accounts for 38% of all cyberattacks. That’s 38 out of every 100.

Bob Huber, the chief security officer at Tenable, said the problem has been getting worse.

“It’s become a business,” Mr Huber told Talking Business. “The effort to start a business is usually considered a steep learning curve. For any enterprise, it takes years of effort and expertise. 

“Ransomware over the past few years has (developed) an ecosystem that allows you not to be an expert (to utilise this software to commit crimes).

“There are initial access brokers and providers and you can contract services out, so you don’t have to be an expert like myself to get into the ransomware game. You can actually contract those areas out where (a hostile actor) may not have expertise.

“So as much as I hate to say it, it’s lowered the barrier of entry to the market for most entities and organisations. It’s just not as difficult to join as it used to be.”

Ransomware targets are plentiful and poorly prepared

Part of the problem, too, is that the total number of targets continues to grow. And most of them aren’t prepared for a sophisticated attack.

“There are so many organisations that, for one reason or another, it’s not core to their business and they can’t make a commensurate investment in defending against ransomware attacks,” Mr Huber said.

“It’s not a specific investment to ransomware itself. It’s foundational cyber hygiene and if you think about organisations like charities, non-profits, they often don’t have the mandates to make the investment.

“You know, economic downturns and pandemics are risks as well, so they have to balance all those risks and determine where cyber fits into their risk (categories) and what they’re willing to accept.”

Mr Huber said as a minimal investment, organisations should have courses in cyber education for their executives and others in the organisation who work in the IT space.

“The biggest bang for the buck is that those are the folks who are great targets,” Mr Huber said.

Working outside offices adds vulnerability

The other major problem is that ransomware attacks have increased with the proliferation of people working from home, or from a café, where there aren’t the same security controls as an office system.

Mr Huber said this was part of “an industrial revolution” that has put cybercrime front and centre for every business.

“Even in my own teams, there’s a lot of focus on zero-day attacks never before seen,” he said. [A zero-day attack exploits a previously unknown vulnerability in software, firmware, or hardware before the vendor has a patch available, leaving systems vulnerable to immediate attack. – Google AI summary] 

Mr Huber said that while some nation states do engage in ransomware, it was more usually carried out by cyber criminals.

“It’s just the evolution of what they’ve always done,” he said.

“It’s the same cast of characters we’ve always had. It’s just that the means have changed and improved.

“Now they’ve taken it a step further: ‘I will encrypt your files, and if you pay me I will give your access back and, in addition, I’m going to disclose sensitive information’.” 

www.tenable.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-5-interview-with-bob-huber-from-tenable

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

WABLE, a social app for neurodivergent people, including those ‘on the spectrum’ – started during the COVID lockdowns in Melbourne – is today beginning to have a global impact.

It’s a culmination of the work started by Holly Fowler in 2000 when she was about 20 years old. 

“I watched the ABC series Love on the Spectrum,” Ms Fowler told Talking Business. “I fell in love with the show and I thought, why isn’t there anything like this to connect the neurodivergent community for friends and dates and other resources as well?”

Of course, it’s become much more than that. It’s now an app designed to create connections.

“Sometimes I go back and look at how much it evolved. Because we have an in-app psychologist, and I am speaking with parents and carers and support care workers, primary carers in the neurodivergent community, it occurred to me that, yes, there are lots of people seeking romantic partners and, yes, Wable can be platform for that.

“But it can also be a platform for making friends, to connect even if you’re not sure of what relationship you’re looking for but you want to connect with like-minded people who might understand the similar challenges that we’re going through” she said.

“Neurodivergent or neurotypical, we all want to feel valued and understood.

“That made rethink and broaden the app for what it was offering. If we could make it a platform for as many people as possible to find the connections they’re looking for, then why not open it up.”

Chasing down the investment

Obviously anyone opening an app when they were about 20 years old needs investment. That’s exactly what Ms Fowler managed.

“It started (out) just as myself,” she said. “I started the idea by myself and started building out what that prototype looked like with savings but like, I am 25, and savings could only get me so far when starting a business and I hadn’t done anything like this before,” she said. 

“I was building what the prototype would look like in the middle of the night and refining the idea and what I wanted Wable to look like – but that was beside my day job.

“I needed to make sure I had funds behind me but also to get the right team in place so that when we got to launch and people were using it, there would be the right resourcing in place to make sure we could service the customers.

“So I quickly needed to get investment and get a team around me that had the same vision,” Ms Fowler said.

“I’m really lucky now. We have got a board of four and more staff outside of that board which has been instrumental in our growth and success.”

Wable gets international attention

The most exciting thing about Wable is it is attracting overseas audiences and it’s planning to expand.

“We got to launch in Australia, which was a pretty big feat, but then there were a lot of people trying to sign up for the app overseas,” Ms Fowler said.

“We always had expansion plans. We’ve already got sign-up groups overseas and I am really excited for when the app is turned on in their country.

“We’re looking to launch next in the UK, US and New Zealand.” 

www.helloable.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-2-interview-with-holly-fowler-from-wable

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