Telstra beefing up cyber security for services business

Telstra is looking to beef up its cyber security prowess within its services business, with a recent job posting seeking a security professional to advise and provide consultation to the telco’s services customers.

The cyber security principal position is expected to “consult to our customers on cyber security to advise on design and integrate complex security solutions” and “assist organisations with the development of new consulting services and offerings to grow capability and adapt to growing and changing security landscape”, according to the telco.

“We expect you to have proven experience of building team capability and be quick to grasp complex, evolving technical information,” the job posting, which expired last week, read.

The search for a cyber security advisor follows a number of moves by the telco in building out its security expertise. In March, Telstra announced it would build two new security operations centres, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne, to support its managed security practice. In January, it hired former AusCERT general manager Thomas King to lead that managed security business.

In November 2016 Telstra acquired New Zealand cyber security firm Cognevo, which had earlier that year entered administration. 

The telco's 2017 Cyber Security Report, released in March, highlighted a growing number of security breach detections and data losses among businesses in Australia.

“We learned that 59 percent of organisations in Australia have detected a business interrupting security breach on at least a monthly basis, which is more than twice as often compared to 2015 (24 percent),” the report’s executive summary stated.

“We found that ransomware was the number one type of malware downloaded in the Asia Pacific region, with 60 percent of Australian organisations stating that they experienced at least one ransomware incident in the last 12 months.

“Of the organisations who experienced a ransomware incident, 57 per cent paid the ransom. Our research found that nearly one in three of the organisations who paid a ransom did not recover their files.”