Category: Technology

Queenland’s Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety has promoted its digital transformation director Erin Earle to lead overall technology delivery. Earle officially took over the CIO position on March 17, filling a role held by Arthur O’Brien for the past four years. She has worked across the various iterations of Queensland’s children’s services departments over the past 16 years. According to her LinkedIn, she most recently held the title of senior executive director, of digital transformation. In this role, Earle “worked on crucial ICT projects and programs including the department’s contract management system Procure to Invest and ... Read more

Cbus has confirmed its members were also targeted in a widespread attack on superannuation funds, with a “spike in log-in attempts” triggering multi-factor authentication prompts for some users. The fund said that a “small number of accounts may have been impacted” by the malicious activity. It said the accounts were “proactively deactivated” and that members “are being contacted”. “This cyber incident occurred several days after the reported attack impacting several other super funds,” Cbus said in a statement. “It is not clear if the incident is related to the other attacks and investigations are continuing.” Cbus joins AustralianSuper, Rest Super ... Read more

Australian Red Cross CIO Brett Wilson has left the organisation after four years leading IT, with Abhishek (Abby) Tripathi named as interim replacement. Brett Wilson. An Australian Red Cross spokesperson told iTnews that Abby “brings extensive experience in enterprise ICT, leadership, and transformation programs, having held senior roles at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Home Affairs, and Surf Life Saving Australia.” “As Interim CIO, Abby will lead our technology projects and strategic initiatives, ensuring continuity and progress while we undertake the search for a permanent CIO,” the spokesperson said. Writing on LinkedIn, Wilson reflected on his time at ... Read more

Oracle has told customers that a hacker broke into a computer system and stole old client log-in credential, Bloomberg News reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. Last month, an unidentified person began attempting to sell data online that was stolen from the cloud servers of Oracle, according to the report. It is the second cyber security breach that the software company has acknowledged to clients in the last month, the report said. Oracle has told some clients that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and CrowdStrike are investigating the incident, the report said, adding the attacker sought an extortion ... Read more

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has appointed a new CISO after reclassifying the position following a review. Jamie Norton, ASIC The corporate regulator has hired former McGrathNicol partner Jamie Norton to take on the CISO role that had previously been held by Jez Clement since December 2021. The changeover comes just two months after ASIC also farewelled its chief data and analytics officer of almost five years Darshil Mehta, who went to join law firm King & Wood Mallesons (KWM).  Writing on LinkedIn, Norton said he was “thrilled to announce” his appointment to ASIC’s “newly-created chief information security officer role”. “I’ve been ... Read more

Australian superannuation funds have been hit by attackers using stolen credentials to access members’ accounts. AustralianSuper said that “up to 600” of its members were impacted by the incident, while Rest Super said that “less than one percent” of its members were impacted, which equates to somewhere less than 20,000 based on membership numbers from its most recent financial report [pdf]. Other funds were also reportedly caught up in the attack, but iTnews has not yet verified this. Comment is being sought. Rest’s chief executive Vicki Doyle said in a statement that “unauthorised activity” was detected on its member access ... Read more

Monash College overhauled its enterprise performance management as part of a broader finance transformation, helping it navigate and forecast the revenue impact of international student caps, among other challenges. The college, which prepares international students for Monash University, introduced IBM Planning Analytics (previously known as TM1), partnering with Cubewise on the implementation. Associate director of financial services and transformation Michael Williamson told a Gartner summit that the large-scale financial transformation was conducted in mid-2023. “We replaced or upgraded just about every single system that we had: ERP, procure to pay, some assurance software, multiple payment gateways, and of course our ... Read more

The Clean Energy Regulator (CER) is undertaking a multi-year transformation of its core technology and data repositories, following an API-first strategy to modernise its operations. The government regulator is progressively re-building all its core platforms and will deliver a new guarantee of origin scheme and an emissions and energy reporting system in the next stage of the program. CER, which administers laws related to carbon emissions, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, is now looking for a permanent general manager transformation and chief data officer to lead the program. The role, which is held on an interim basis by Leigh McFarlane ... Read more

Bupa has set a goal to create a “digital health twin” for every customer that can be used to power preventative and customer-centric conversations and care programs. Bupa’s Ed Falconer (Image credit: Databricks) Chief data officer Ed Falconer told a Databricks data intelligence day in Melbourne that the insurer has stood up and optimised a data platform over the past two years to underpin its ‘connected care’ strategy and vision. “We want to create better experiences for our customers, [where] those experiences will typically turn into preventive and personalised healthcare,” Falconer said. “Ultimately, what we want to be able ... Read more

Across Australia, telemetry and industry sources indicate that the number of local ransomware attacks are on the rise while average ransom amounts are down as cyber attackers are turning their sights beyond larger Australian enterprises to target SMEs. According to Gerald Beuchelt, Chief Information Security Officer at Acronis, one of the reasons Australian SMEs are vulnerable is because they are less prepared to defend against ransomware attacks. As larger enterprises bolster their defences, cyber criminals are targeting unsuspecting smaller businesses. SMEs can also mistakenly assume they are not worth attacking, or have a false sense of security because they incorrectly ... Read more