Presented by

  • Paul Watters

    Paul Watters
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-watters-phd-4751b6143/

    Professor Watters is Strategic Cyber Consultant at Ionize, and Academic Dean at Academies Australasia Polytechnic. Professor Watters is Honorary Professor at Macquarie University and Adjunct Professor at La Trobe University. Professor Watters works in three main areas (a) Providing advice on cyber security strategy, governance, risk and compliance, (b) Researching strategies for reducing harm from online child sex abuse, piracy and intellectual property theft, and fraud and scams, phishing, using AI, data mining and analytics, and (c) Cybersecurity skills assessment and development, including for people on the autism spectrum.

Abstract

In this presentation, I will analyse some key themes that have emerged in recent years from the numerous data breaches that have plagued Australian consumers. My observation is that the overall security posture of the nation could be improved by adopting a more open, transparent and sharing-friendly culture, where collective security is seen as a common goal. There is little doubt that Free and Open Source software and materials benefit from having many eyes analysing flaws and identifying quality issues. Even governments have invested heavily in "open source" intelligence in recent years, perhaps latently recognising the significance of data which is openly shared, rather than hidden away. I will discuss some case studies and try to derive some broad principles on how business, government and a very broad set of stakeholders can collaborate to build a more secure foundation for Australia's diverse online ecosystem. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl9bbxtmOx8 LA Archive: http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/everythingopen/2023/clarendon_room_d/Tuesday/Is_Free_and_Open_Cybersecurity_Essential_Desirable_Or_Not.webm