Hackers hit cybersecurity conference

The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AIDC) had some solid names lending support to the launch of the institute’s new set of “cybersecurity governance principles” – a very hot topic in the wake of the Optus and Medibank Private hacks – including the federal minister in charge Clare O’Neil and Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre CEO Rachael Falk.

So it’s less than ideal when an online conference on Monday to launch the principles was – get this - hacked, leaving the institute’s boss Mark Rigotti and LinkedIn, the platform hosting the event with a bit of a PR problem.

Minister Clare O’Neil lent her support to the cybersecurity principals ready to be launched at the conference ... which was shut down by hackers. Credit: Paul Jeffers

Thousands of would-be participants began to get antsy when they tried to log on for a 1pm start and the conference didn’t go live on schedule.

As the comments from the waiting participants began to mount, a fake Eventbrite link – which many unsuspecting users clicked upon – was posted in the LinkedIn chat function asking for credit card details, leading the institute to plead with participants not to try to use any links posted in the chat.

When an official-looking AICD link appeared to the event, some users who hadn’t learned their lesson the first time round tried to follow it, only to complain that it didn’t work and eventually, about 30 minutes into the debacle, the institute bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the event.

We’ve asked both the institute and LinkedIn what went wrong and have not heard back, but people close to the goings on say it looks like there was a failure of the platform as well as the posting by malicious actors of bogus links and it was unclear as of Monday afternoon if the two occurrences were linked.

Rigotti said on Monday evening that it was unclear if any credit cards details had been handed over and urged anybody affected to contact their card issuers.

“The AICD apologises sincerely for the unacceptable issues with the LinkedIn Live event,” he said. “We recognise this experience has fallen well below the high standards our members rightly expect of the AICD.”

On the run: Treasurer Jim Chalmers.Credit: Shakespeare

BUDGET OVER-RUN

Treasurer Jim Chalmers looked a treat on the front page of Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian on Monday morning, photographed in his active wear jogging through the southern Brisbane woods as he prepares to hand down his first budget on Tuesday.

It’s the type of image that ticks a lot of boxes for political media minders, showing their man looking fit for the job and all of that, but CBD frets that Chalmers might be tempting fate with that photo-op.

We need only hark back less than six months to find an almost identical pic of Chalmers’ predecessor Josh Frydenberg, shorts, T-shirt, trainers, the lot, right down to the placement on page 1 of The Oz, just as he was about to hand down what turned out to be his final budget before his party lost government and Frydenberg himself lost his seat.

Careful you don’t trip up there, Jim.

REAL NATURAL

Staying with Canberra’s budget week – it not a real budget, but we’ll let that go – a Labor government, plus a record number of Greens and upper middle class climate-focused types was always bound to see a change in the kind of lobby groups peddling their wares in the corridors of power.

That new normal appears to include more naturopaths. To “alleviate the stress of budget week”, the Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia have been distributing care packages to MPs offices and press gallery bureaus, containing an array of health-giving snacks – protein balls, chia seeds and the like.

It also comes with a side invite to the NHAA’s breakfast event, at Parliament House’s mural hall next month, where the group is hoping to get momentum behind a push to get naturopaths recognised as a registered health practice “for the wellbeing and safety of the nation”.

That might take more than a few granola bars.

MINE CRAFT

The tussle to gain control of debt-laden mining minnow Australian Pacific Coal has had CBD enthralled in recent months as discharged bankrupt “Boganaire” Nathan Tinkler lined up with John Canavan – little brother of coal’s man in Canberra Senator Matt Canavan to try to get their hands on the company and its major asset, a hole in the ground called Dartbrook, near Aberdeen in the Hunter Valley.

The Tinkler-Canavan designs on the mine looked to have come to nought last month after APC’s largest creditor and shareholder Trepang Services, owned by pearl king Nick Paspaley and John “Foxy” Robinson gave its blessings to a rival proposal – a joint venture between Tetra Resources and Javelin to reopen APC’s Dartbrook coal mine.

So Tinkler and his partners might have allowed themselves a sigh of relief on Monday after the NSW government announced at the weekend that it would ban open cut mining at Dartbrook.

APC was putting on a brave face to the stock exchange on Monday, telling investors that it hadn’t given up hope of changing the state government’s mind and, besides, there was no problem mining coal underground at the site.

Let’s hope that is enough to satisfy Tetra and Javelin, because the level of local opposition to any open cut operation at Dartbrook makes a change of heart by the NSW government unlikely.

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