This Aussie start-up plans to make Medibank-style breaches impossible
The devastating data breaches that exposed millions of Australians’ personal information at Medibank and Optus have exposed a fundamental flaw in the way organizations protect data; a flaw that even the best cybersecurity tools cannot fix.
Now an Australian start-up claims to have solved the problem that makes these breaches so devastating, and the world’s leading insurance market is backing the technology.
The Tide Foundation has announced a partnership with Lloyd’s-backed insurer Becco that will provide preferential insurance cover to companies that adopt technology designed to eliminate the “choke points” that have turned Medibank and Optus incidents from simple breaches into national crises.
The devastating data breaches that exposed millions of Australians’ personal information at Medibank and Optus have exposed a fundamental flaw in the way organizations protect data.Credit: Getty Images
The choke points are sysadmins, database administrators, and compromised credentials who have access to all databases in god mode. In most companies’ systems, attackers have the same comprehensive access as legitimate administrators when they breach the perimeter through phishing, insider threats, or vulnerabilities in third-party software.
“There are centralized units of authority that exist in the digital world, and they pose a huge risk to anyone who trusts them,” Tide co-founder Michael Loewy told this imprint.
“Someone, somewhere, needs to hold the keys to decrypt and access the data, which could lead to someone being compromised, coerced, or becoming a rogue insider.”
After seven years of research and development validated by Australian universities including RMIT, Deakin and the University of Wollongong, Tide’s solution is deceptively simple: locking data with cryptographic keys that system administrators, rogue CTOs, and even Tide itself don’t have.
“Even if someone has gained full control of your system, that doesn’t mean you’ll be faced with the mass data breaches we see every day,” Loewy said.
Tide Foundation co-founder Michael Loewy, Becco co-founder Geoff Stooke, Tide Foundation co-founder Yuval Hertzog, Becco co-founder James Soutter, Tide Foundation co-founder Dominique Valladolid.Credit: Tidal Foundation.
