41. The Optus Hack – What it teaches us

By now we have all heard about the Optus hack, with around 10 million people’s data at risk and up to 2 million sensitive records taken.

This week we mark the start of Cyber Security Awareness Month by looking at what happened (based on current reporting), what could have been done to prevent it, and what best practice cyber security looks like. Darryl Turner, Head of DevOps at Lightwire, joins Brendan and Nick to go through all the details.

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Intro to Cyber Security episode
• 1:35 Details of the Optus cyber attack
• 3:00 What makes the Optus attack unique
• 4:00 What can hackers do with the Optus data?
• 7:15 What caused the Optus attack
• 8:45 What’s an API & Happy path testing
• 13:30: Authentication issues
• 15:15 How cyber security weaknesses are exposed
• 18:30: Penetration testing responsibilities
• 24:30: How bug bounty programs improve cyber security
• 30:15: Red teaming to simulate attacks boosting real defense
• 34:00: The role of Cyber Security awareness month
• 36:20: Understanding the human risk element of cyber security
• 39:00: Data governance to mitigate fallout