MailGuard Blog

The image many businesspeople have of cybercrime is a teenager with a grubby hoody hunched over a laptop hammering code into a flickering screen that’s like something out of The Matrix. The imaginary teen finds a backdoor into a bank’s server admin page, and typing like fury beats the computer in a showdown of quick-draw typing.

There’s a lot about online crime that’s ambiguous and confusing, but the damage it’s doing is all too clear. Recent research figures released by the FBI and reports from independent cybersecurity experts estimate that the damage bill from cybercrime in 2018 will reach more than US$12 billion dollars.

If you’re looking for some uplifting reading, I would not recommend The Global Risks Report 2018. Published by The World Economic Forum (WEF), this report is a comprehensive examination of all the things that threaten to derail society. Climate change, tidal waves, water scarcity, terrorism; it’s the ultimate ‘worst-case scenario.’ It makes for sobering reading, but of course, the objective of the WEF Global Risks Report is to help economists and businesspeople mitigate risk.

It's been a huge year from the POV of cybersecurity. The number and sophistocation of email scams we've seen in 2017 is a sobering reminder that cybercrime is a growing problem. One of the reasons that email scams persist is that they have a high success ratio.

An Interview with Prof. Gary Martin of AIM WA

I recently spoke at a leadership forum organised by the Australian Institute of Management, Western Australia (AIM WA). In my talk, I invited the audience to consider the real and immediate threat that cybercrime poses to business, not only in terms of potential losses but at the level where it can be a threat to a company’s very existence.

Following-up on the AIM WA forum I interviewed Professor Gary Martin. Gary is CEO and Executive Director of AIM WA, and is hands-on in making their forums happen.

Over the years, working with people in the cybersecurity field and talking to them about their experiences I’ve heard some hair-raising stories.

Last year I was at a business leaders conference in Singapore, and I got talking to a guy who had learned the hard way how destructive cybercrime can be.

It's been a non-stop week at MailGuard with multiple brandjacking, phishing and malware scams detected and blocked by our threat detection engines.

Our CEO, Craig McDonald wrote an insightful article for the blog on Monday explaining the potential impact of the new EU's GDPR regime. Craig will be speaking at the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) Western Australia next week, discussing the challenges cybersecurity presents to business leaders.

 What happens if your office caught fire today? Is there a plan?

Business leaders have urged Australian executives to stop being complacent about their exposure to online crime.