Quoting from http://www.psnews.com.au/aps/559/news/asd-sets-new-model-against-cyber-threats
ASD sets new model against cyber threats
P S News: Independent News for the Australian Public Service, Edition 559, 11 July 2017
The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has issued a newly developed model for Government and private organisations to help mitigate cybersecurity incidents caused by various cyber threats.
The ASD’s Essential Eight Maturity Model has been designed to assist cybersecurity professionals to assess the level of implementation of the Essential Eight mitigation strategies
The ASD said the model provided guidance on addressing a broad range of cyber threats and was a useful tool for self-assessment.
“It is applicable to a range of organisations, from those facing standard risks to those constantly targeted by highly skilled adversaries or otherwise operating in a high-risk environment,” the ASD said.
“The ASD Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents are prioritised strategies to help organisations mitigate the most common cybersecurity threats.”
It said the most effective of these mitigation strategies for targeted cyber intrusions and ransomware were known as the Essential Eight.
The ASD said that, while no single mitigation strategy was guaranteed to prevent cybersecurity incidents, it recommended organisations implement a package of eight essential strategies as a baseline, making it much harder for adversaries to compromise systems.
“Before implementing the strategies, organisations need to identify their assets and perform a risk assessment to identify the level of protection required from cyber threats,” it said.
The ASD said the Essential Eight actions were: application whitelisting; patch applications; disabling untrusted Microsoft Office macros; user application hardening; restricting administrative privileges; patching operating systems; multi-factor authentication; and daily back-up of important data.
The 3-page Essential Eight Maturity Model can be accessed from the ASD’s website at this PS News link. https://asd.gov.au/publications/protect/Essential_Eight_Maturity_Model.pdf
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