The Essential Eight – keeping your digital infrastructure secure

Since the start of the pandemic, global digitization has accelerated at breakneck speed, and as we have seen in the news, cyber-attacks are impacting more and more businesses and individuals than ever before. 

This month, we ask how the Essential Eight is working for Australian organisations and discuss recent news that the federal government is set to mandate the Essential Eight cyber security controls for all 98 non-corporate Commonwealth entities. This comes four years after they were released as an evolution on the Top 4 mitigation strategies – the key strategies from the framework of 35 strategies developed as a leading set of practices by the Australian Signals Directorate over a decade ago.

What does this mean for your organisation and cyber security readiness? How does this align with the other standards for cyber security practice and of course, cyber security regulations and legislation? Does the Essential Eight offer an approach to cyber security beyond government and large business? 

In episode thirteen of ‘OzCyber Unlocked’, AustCyber’s US Ecosystem Development Lead Michelle Mosey speaks to Suzy Clarke (Executive GM for Security at accounting software company Xero), Keith Howard (Group CISO at the Commonwealth Bank), Jennifer Stockwell (National Cyber Security Principal at Telstra) and Andrew Pade (General Manager Cyber Defence Operations at Commonwealth Bank and former Head of Cyber Security at the Reserve Bank of Australia).

This month, our ‘cyber spotlight’ features David Cottingham from Airlock Digital. Airlock Digital is an Australian cyber security company that enables you to easily create and manage secure allowlists, what you might know as whitelists. In the simplest of terms, Airlock’s platform provides the management of programs and files on your allowlist – if it’s not on the list, it will not run.

For more information about the organisations featured, visit:

• Xero: www.xero.com.au
• Xero on Air (Episode 14: A simple approach to cyber security): https://youtu.be/cEgBedteiAE
• Commonwealth Bank: www.commbank.com.au/support/security.html
• Telstra: www.telstra.com.au/cyber-security
• Airlock Digital: www.airlockdigital.com