Page 12 - Cyber Warnings

Wrap-Up: The Australian Cyber Security Centre 2017

Conference

How we re getting serious about cyber security down-under.
By Michael McKinnon, Director - Commercial Services, Sense of Security

We’re getting serious about cybersecurity – that’s the take away message from the Australian
Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) 2017 Conference that I
recently attended, 14 – 16 March 2017.

Held in Australia’s capital city Canberra for the last three
years, the annual ACSC conference has quickly
cemented itself as one of the premier cyber security
events in the region.

The conference is coordinated by the ACSC which is a
group of Australian Government departments aligned to
provide a cohesive response to the cyber security needs
of the country, and to act as a collaboration hub.

Accordingly, this conference provides a strong focus on
cyber security in the context of protecting national
interests, but also connects researchers, vendors,
consultants and government agencies together.

The conference opened with a keynote from Dr.
Deborah Frincke, head of the Research Directorate of
the US National Security Agency/Central Security
Service (NSA/CSS).

Dr. Frincke covered the rather fascinating concept of
“adversarial machine learning” describing a future
whereby attackers may be able to compromise highly-
automated and self-healing networks – subverting them
by using tactics of misdirection with large volumes of
data for example.

As automation, deep-learning and other “AI” related technologies continue to mature and
become mainstream, it is not inconceivable to think that maybe we’re creating another set of
problems that we’ll all be mitigating one day; reminiscent of the Internet of Things, which itself is
still unfolding.

12 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – March 2017 Edition
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