Wasn’t it Einstein who figured insanity is doing the same thing over again, and expecting different results? For professionals tasked to secure enterprise data, it’s beyond time to start doing things differently. At a minimum, you need to bolster your cyber defences.

News recently that Australia’s political parties had been hacked by a “sophisticated state actor” should cause every business concern.

News last week of the Quora data security breach should serve as a wake-up call for all businesses. The widely used question-and-answer website was compromised by a malicious third party, impacting the account information of approximately 100 million users, including names, email addresses and encrypted passwords.

Despite the tightening regulatory framework of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and Notifiable Data Breach (NBD) legislation over here, gaping holes are prevalent in data protection and security management practices across the country. The latest quarterly mandatory data breach report by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), suggests that mobile security practices still have some way to go before they are ingrained in the employee mindset.

Time strapped IT managers are often forced to prioritise “keeping the lights on” with their information and communications technology (ICT) and mobile environments instead of exploring new strategies. Even getting around to analysing and optimising the environment already in place often falls back on the back burner.

This could mean that gaps in their infrastructure, may slide “under the radar” while more pressing current ICT matters are attended to.

Data Breach reporting laws are being strengthened to protect user data and privacy. As of 22 February 2018, the Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme is active in Australia as an amendment under the federal Privacy Act 1988.