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Pacific Transcription is pleased to announce that the company has successfully attained Maturity Level One across all eight Australian Signals Directorate’s Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies, and is aiming to attain Maturity Level Two by the end of 2025.

What is the Essential Eight?

In November 2022, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) published a baseline set of mitigation strategies, called the “Essential Eight”, to help Australian companies mitigate cyber security incidents caused by various cyber threats.

While no set of mitigation strategies is guaranteed to protect against all cyber threats, implementing the Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies helps Australian businesses make it much harder for adversaries to compromise their systems.

What Types of Cyber Threats are Targeted by the Essential Eight?

The types of cyber threats targeted and addressed by the Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies include:

• targeted cyber intrusion, such as those executed by advanced persistent threats (i.e. foreign intelligence services) and other external adversaries who steal data,
• ransomware denying access to data for monetary gain, and external adversaries with destructive intent (i.e. to destroy data and prevent computers/networks from functioning),
• malicious insiders who steal data such as customer details or intellectual property, and/or who destroy data and prevent computers/networks from functioning,
• Business Email Compromise (BEC), where an adversary uses email to trick someone into sending money or divulging confidential company information, and
• industrial control systems.

The development of the Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies has been informed by the ASD’s significant experience in responding to cyber security incidents, performing vulnerability assessments, and penetration testing in Australian government organisations.

What does this mean for Clients?

The implementation of the Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies, as well as the successful and ongoing attainment of both ISO:27001 (Information Security Management Systems) and ISO:9001 (Quality Systems) Certifications, means that Pacific’s clients can continue to have peace of mind that their data is safe with Pacific.

What do Maturity Levels One and Two Cover?

Maturity Level 1

The focus of this maturity level is malicious actors who are content to simply leverage commodity tradecraft that is widely available to gain access to, and likely control of, a system.

For example, malicious actors opportunistically using a publicly available exploit for a vulnerability in an online service which had not been patched or authenticating to an online service using credentials that were stolen, reused, brute forced or guessed.

Generally, malicious actors are looking for any victim rather than a specific victim and will opportunistically seek common weaknesses in many targets rather than investing heavily in gaining access to a specific target.

Malicious actors will employ common social engineering techniques to trick users into weakening the security of a system and launch malicious applications. If user accounts that malicious actors compromise have special privileges, they will exploit it. Depending on their intent, malicious actors may also destroy data (including backups).

Maturity Level 2

The focus of this maturity level is malicious actors operating with a modest step-up in capability from the previous maturity level. These malicious actors are willing to invest more time in a target and, perhaps more importantly, in the effectiveness of their tools.

For example, these malicious actors will likely employ well-known tradecraft to better attempt to bypass controls implemented by a target and evade detection. This includes actively targeting credentials using phishing and employing technical and social engineering techniques to circumvent weak multi-factor authentication.

Generally, malicious actors are likely to be more selective in their targeting but still somewhat conservative in the time, money and effort they may invest in a target.

Malicious actors will likely invest time to ensure their phishing is effective and employ common social engineering techniques to trick users to weaken the security of a system and launch malicious applications. If user accounts that malicious actors compromise have special privileges, they will exploit it, otherwise they will seek user accounts with special privileges.

Depending on their intent, malicious actors may also destroy all data (including backups) accessible to a user account with special privileges.

Cyber Security Continues to be a Major Concern for All Companies

As we are all acutely aware, cyber security continues to be a major concern for all companies. Much company time, expenditure, investment in infrastructure and secure systems, and external tests to evaluate data security, is invested in identifying and mitigating these risks. However, the complexity and delivery of cyber threats continually evolve, making it difficult for everyday companies to keep abreast of developments.

Thankfully, the Australian Signals Directorate, through the dedicated teams committed to monitoring, mitigating, testing, and preventing cyber threats, is actively helping companies by sharing the ASD’s wealth of experience.

The Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies is just one of the many tools developed by the ASD. The ASD is continually developing and communicating detailed and accurate cyber threat mitigation strategies and other useful information. Australian companies use these strategies, information, and tools to prevent and proactively address most threats to their cyber security systems.

For further information on the strategies and other tools Pacific Transcription implements to mitigate cyber threats, contact us today!

For further information on the ASD’s Essential Eight Cyber Threat Mitigation Strategies, contact the Australian Signals Directorate.