Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith computers hacked.

The following news article should be a reminder to all of us that even the top people in Australian government can have their email accounts compromised.

“Gillard's parliamentary computer, along with those of several cabinet ministers including Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and Defence Minister Stephen Smith were believed to have been compromised, News Ltd newspapers report”.... Read More

For obvious reasons we aren’t provided with the full details of how their computers were hacked and whether or not it was their computers or just their email accounts. But what is important is for all of us to decide the level of risk associated with keeping material online and easily accessible not only to ourselves, but potentially to others as well.

Government ministers will have the best resources available to them which far exceeds the resources available to most small and medium sized businesses. Most businesses unwittingly (and without their knowledge or control) provide others with details of their infrastructure making it easier for hackers and criminals to be quite specific in how they target a business, government department or individual. With knowledge you can reduce your attack profile on the internet. You can’t eliminate your attack profile because as we’ve seen even the biggest companies in the world (such as Google) haven’t been able to prevent others from hacking them, but you can reduce your exposure.

Computing as with life is full of compromises. As we move more towards cloud based services do ask questions and keep in mind the compromises you are forced to make. Many online services do not provide important logging information that would immediately alert you to a possible online attack. Many computer professionals believing they are assisting their clients by providing the latest tools and technologies to give them remote access to their systems and may in fact be potentially exposing their clients. If you can log on remotely, then it is possible that someone else may be able to as well. Make sure you know the increased exposure with each piece of new technology and that you ask the questions you need to ask.

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au