Negar Salek: Casting a net over online perpetrators

The Federal Government used National Child Protection Week, [2-8 September] as the launch pad for the promotional activity of its $189 million NetAlert online safety program, announced in August.

The campaign came just in time to fight off negative media reports after a 16-year-old Melbourne schoolboy claimed he hacked the security filter that is accessible to every Australian household and public library as part of NetAlert in less than 30 minutes.

Led by Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, the campaign saw the senator traipse across the country, state to state, media briefing to media briefing to entitle local MPs with NetAlert state ambassador status and discuss key security concerns.

High on her list were details about how to ‘combat online bullying and abuse’. For those who thought bullying is restricted to the schoolyard, Senator Coonan released details of a study which found one in five children aged 13 to 17 witness online bullying over email, in chat rooms, discussion groups and on social networking sites.

Delving into the precarious world of online scams, she spoke of the high risk to those who post personal information on the web. Astonishingly, 40 percent of children who chat online have been contacted by someone they don’t know.

‘Combat online grooming’ is NetAlert’s answer to that problem which includes a collaboration with the AFP and Australia’s Online Child Sex Exploitation Team (OCSET) to help catch and persecute offenders.

As with all successful campaigns, enlisting a high-profile personality is often a crowd-puller and Senator Coonan certainly delivered one during the week’s inaugural briefing.

Former Olympic swimmer and publicly adored Kieren Perkins was announced as Australia’s parent ambassador to NetAlert. Together, the unlikely pair are talking to the public about better protecting their families online.

Mike Solomons, director of security reseller SelecTech applauds the program but warns illicit content still trickles onto PCs through USB sticks and camera phones. “If large corporations spend thousands of dollars trying to stop the [spread of illicit] net content how will mum and dad cope?”

Education I suppose, which is exactly what NetAlert is doing, educating the public. Security both at home and at work is serious. Hackers are no longer in the game for fun — it’s a functioning underground global business raking in millions. If a 16-year-old boy can hack into the system what does that say for the level of threat today?

Hopefully, the high-profile campaign will not end anytime soon. If it stops a few families sending a cheque to a Nigerian scammer; it’s a positive achievement.

Porn still common on networks
Despite tight network and gateway security controls, illicit content such as porn is rife in the workplace and continues to wreak havoc, according to Sydney-based security reseller, SelecTech Solutions.

Regardless of how it gets on the network, the content will get there, said Mike Solomons, director at SelecTech Solutions, the sole Australian reseller of Irish security product PixAlert.

“With more than 250 audits in the past year we have found [illicit] content. Recently in Europe we found 83,000 video files which included almost 40 full-length porn videos,” said Solomons.

According to Solomons, although current security controls such as gateways and firewalls are successful at filtering content, a huge amount of illicit material still ends up on PCs through USB sticks, camera phones and laptops.

Furthermore, malicious porn peddlers are pasting images in popular file formats such as Powerpoint or Word to deceive filters.

Home PCs are also at major risk, as evidenced by the Federal Government’s recent ISP filtering scheme NetAlert for homes, public libraries and schools.

“The government should be applauded for its content filtering but there’s a lot of ways to still get [illicit] content in,” said Solomons. “These days a child can go into a shop and buy a 4GB USB stick with their pocket money and load it with music or illicit images.

According to Patrik Bihammar, senior analyst at IDC Australia, the risk is widespread in organisations that don’t control and monitor their individual PCs.

“This is an issue not only in terms of productivity and what is appropriate, it also takes up a lot of disk space and is a major security problem,” said Bihammar.

“It’s up to each organisation on how they want to manage, control and block user behaviour,” said Bihammar. “Vendors have a range of messaging security appliance offerings that help control, secure and enforce policies.”

Both Solomons and Bihammar urged companies to enforce policy and educate workers.