Category: In The Media

Acurus Pty Ltd in the Media

The Smith Family says details of around 80,000 donors may have been exposed in hacking attack

The Smith Family charity has informed 80,000 donors their personal information has been accessed after a cyber attack.

The hacker unsuccessfully attempted to steal money from the charity, which supports disadvantaged children.

Information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, donation records and in some circumstances the first and last four digits of credit or debit cards may have been accessed.

In a statement The Smith Family said the data accessed would not be enough to make fraudulent purchases.

“No middle digits, expiry date or CVV numbers were accessed as The Smith Family does not store that information in its systems,” the charity said.

Customers have been warned to be on high alert for potential scams, although there is no evidence any personal information has been misused yet.

Would you know what to do if your personal information was leaked in a data breach? Would you know how to identify a phishing scam via phone, post or email? Do you know where are your data lives and what protects access to it?

Acurus helps companies start to build Cyber Security resilience by aligning to the ACSC Essential 8 as a starting point. We then help companies build out sophisticated and mature IT security capabilities and standards. 

Contact us below to speak with our cyber security experts and start the journey to protect your company today.

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    Optus Hacked: Customers warned to check in with their banks after personal data exposed

    Optus hacked; customers warned to check in with their banks after personal data exposed

    Last Thursday, Optus alerted its customers of the security breach and confirmed that the attack was quickly identified and shut down. However, the telco’s 11 million customers have been urged by cyber security experts to be extra vigilant of potential threats over the coming weeks.

    Types of personal data that had been compromised included home addresses, ID documents such as driver’s licences and passports, phone numbers and customer names.

    Optus is working with the Australian Federal Police, Australian Signals Directorate, and Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to mitigate risk and find the culprit of the attack.

    The telco has confirmed the attack did not compromise services such as mobile and home internet, payment details or account passwords. The company also verified that messages and voice calls had not been compromised and were safe to use as well.

    Experts are concerned that the security breach could pave more ways to conduct social engineering attacks. This is when scammers might pretend to be an Optus representative and trick people into handing over sensitive data.

    The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) had been notified of the incident according to a spokesman for Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil.

    “The Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre has seen broad targeting of Australians and Australian organisations, through rapid exploitation of technical vulnerabilities by state actors and cyber criminals seeking to exploit weaknesses and steal sensitive data.”

    The Optus data breach has been dubbed as one of Australia’s largest cyber attacks in history. According to Optus, the type of information which may have been exposed includes:

    • Customers’ names
    • Dates of birth
    • Phone numbers
    • Email addresses

    For a subset of customers compromised data include:

    • Addresses
    • ID document numbers such as driver’s licence or passport numbers
    • Optus says payment details and account passwords have not been compromised.

    According to Sean Duca, vice president and regional chief security office for APJ at Palo Alto Networks the attack calls for an even stronger collaboration between the Australian government and the private sector to tackle the rise in cyber attacks.

    If you would like more information on how to identify potential cyber security threats speak to one of our cyber security experts today.

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      A Recipe For Success.

      Acurus assists Bakers Delight to deliver a centrally managed, secured SD-WAN network to support the current and future operational needs of the organisation.

      Bakers Delight engaged Acurus to assist in the solution architecture of their digital loyalty platform and the design and delivery of a new secured SD-WAN network solution. Being a customer centric organisation for 14 years, Acurus continues to give customers what they need, allowing us to cultivate many strong working relationships. Acurus understands that the most critical part of a program such as this is to choose the right technology, that is fit for the organisation.

      Prior to deploying the new digital customer loyalty platform, Bakers Delight needed to update its network solution across nearly 700 sites internationally. This new network needed to introduce SD-WAN capabilities to ensure that POS and digital customer loyalty transactions could happen in real time, while enhancing its security across all sites, improving centralised management and overall security visibility.

      Bakers Delight needed confidence that they were picking the right technology and vendor and engaged Acurus on a market review and proof of concept. The development of a Software Defined – Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) proof of concept took this research and approach to a new level. Effectively shortlisting from 10 technologies to three, then running those three technologies in parallel across 30 active bakeries within their global network.

      Acurus tested each of the three shortlisted vendor’s technology across 10 Bakeries per vendor, spanning three countries. The proof of concept had no negative impact on the operations of any Bakeries or Corporate Systems. Acurus tested the SD-WAN functionality of each vendors product, analysing their ability to improve network performance and reliability for key Bakers Delight systems and applications alongside reviewing the advanced security features.

      The proof of concept delivered a full capability and commercial scoring matrix which validated Fortinet as the leading vendor to be approved by Bakers Delight for a full roll out across their data centre and bakeries.

      With the acceptance as Fortinet for a vendor, Acurus ran the full rollout project in coordination with Bakers Delight and their on-site support team. The project delivered the design, setup, configuration and roll out of the Fortinet-60E devices to approximately 700 bakeries across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. The rollout task was completed using Acurus’ 24/7 helpdesk service which was highly adaptable, working within Bakers Delight’s parameters and proposed timeline of 5 months while ensuring seamless cutovers, leaving no impact on customer interactions across all sites.

      Throughout the rollout process Acurus introduced new SD-WAN policies, updated unified threat protection, and centralised all security logging into a centralised FortiAnalyzer. This project left Bakers Delight with a ‘single pane of glass’ network threat assessment capability across all sites globally. Acurus bolstered this solution by partnering with Bakers Delight to provide a fully managed service, ensuring a seamless transition to operations and allowing Bakers Delight staff to focus on other important initiatives for the business.

      A new modernised secured SD-WAN solution backed by a fully managed service was the essential foundation which would provide peace of mind to the business. This has allowed Bakers Delight to improve overall security, visibility, operational improvements and rollout new and exciting services such as the new digital customer loyalty program.

      Acurus had recently completed a five-year managed service agreement, delivering high quality support for the Bakers Delight Corporate Network, and Bakers Delight Global Bakery Networks. Following a successful design and implementation of the new SD-WAN solution, Acurus will continue to support the Bakers Delight business, by not only ensuring the secure delivery of existing POS, Loyalty, Wi-Fi and operational services, but allowing for future services and applications to be implemented securely.

                     “Running a three-vendor proof of concept across our production bakery network was a challenging approach, however the success criteria and learnings from the project enabled Bakers Delight to choose the right vendor and technology to provide a solid and secure foundation for today and for the future. As always, the technical and delivery leadership the Acurus team demonstrated, was critical to the success, including the design, approach and transition to the new global secured SD-WAN network”

      Dragan Panjkovic – PMO Manager

      Acurus launches white label ISP platform

      Melbourne-based technology services provider, Acurus, has created a new white label ISP platform allowing companies to provide tailored internet services to their customers.

      The service can be tailored specifically to an organisation’s needs by Acurus, who will build the platform and equip the network as well as manage billing, customer support and integration services.

      Acurus managing director, Jason Matser, said the launch of its ‘ISP as a Service’ comes at a time where brand loyalty was waning among Australian consumers.

      “Internet savvy consumers are less ’sticky’ than ever before and are willing to switch their insurance provider, supermarket or energy company in an instant… even just to save a few dollars a week,” Matser said.

      “Organisations who can provide customers with multiple service contracts (insurance, energy and internet for example) will realise greater opportunities for growing their average revenue per customer and retention rates.”

      Acurus recently created a platform for newly launched broadband company, Tomi, which provides customers with pay-as-you-go broadband services.

      Founder Andy Summerton worked with Acurus to help develop Tomi.

      “If you use it, you pay for it. It’s that simple. With traditional internet offerings you are sometimes paying for what you don’t use. Especially if you have a holiday house or live in a share house,” Summerton said.