In recent years the threat landscape to modern organizations has shifted dramatically. The range and the complexity of threats are increasing at such a rate that purely preventive measures will no longer be viable. In particular, the motivation of malicious attackers towards financial gain and away from ‘bragging rights’ has become apparent. As a result, ‘shotgun’ attacks that used to test large numbers of organizations for common vulnerabilities are being replaced by more selective strategies where individual “high-value” targets are pursued for longer periods of time. This presentation discusses trends in information security threats in the light of modern information security strategy. Key themes are information security culture, security risk management, etc.

Dr Atif Ahmad is a senior academic based at the University of Melbourne. His research interests are in the management of information security in organisations. In particular, he is interested in the protection of business competitive advantage through advanced risk management strategies. In previous years Atif has worked as a consultant for Pinkerton and WorleyParsons where he applied his expertise to Internet corporations and critical infrastructure installations. Atif is a Board Certified Protection Professional (CPP) with the American Society for Industrial Security.

Dr Sean B Maynard is an academic based at the Department of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. Sean started his academic career in Information Systems focusing on the use of computing technology to aid senior management (EIS) and the evaluation of decision support systems. His current research is in the areas of information security and business analytics. He has many research papers focusing on areas such as information security management, the evaluation of security policy quality, the investigation of security culture within organisations and the maturity of analytics in organisations. Sean is the coordinator of the Master of Information Systems degree.

Mr Stan Singh is the Founder/Principal Consultant of IronHorse Asia Sdn Bhd. Mr. Singh’s 33 years of experience in the IT industry covers a very broad area: from System Integration & Application Design to Developing Application Specifications, Programming, Project Management, Systems Installation &Implementation, User & Corporate Training and IT Consultation, IT Governance, Business Continuity Management, Knowledge Management & IT & Business Security Management. Mr Singh is a business coach and has spoken in many conferences and business seminars locally and internationally.
Currently Mr Singh is also a member of British Institute of Management, a Councillor member of PIKOM (The National ICT Association of Malaysia), serving in various committees and has equally been involved in ASOCIO (Asian Oceanic Computing Industry Organisation) forums and bilateral trade visits to many Economies since Year 2004.