Cybermerc launches AU cyber threat intelligence platform, AUSHIELD

AustCyber and Cybermerc have unveiled the country's national threat intelligence sharing platform, dubbed AUSHIELD Defend.

The platform, which was funded by the federal government and aligns with the 2020 Cyber Security Strategy, is designed to help businesses and research organisations defend themselves against cyber threats.

Businesses are able to share threat intelligence, which is sent to the DEFEND platform and analysed by security researchers and machine learning technologies.

So far Australian National University, Fortinet, Anomali, Elastic, Vault Cloud, and startups SecureStack and Countersight have joined the project.

According to Cybermerc CEO and cofounder Matthew Nevin, DEFEND is an opportunity to build a community of digital trust that could help defend Australian networks from attacks.

It's a sentiment echoed by Elastic Australia federal director Andrew Goodall, who calls the platform an important collaborative approach to national cybersecurity.

"Using Elastic Stack to correlate new threat intelligence with data collected from the AUSHIELD community, Cybermerc and its partners will be able to respond faster to threats facing Australian organisations.

Cybermerc is inviting organisations to join the AUSHIELD DEFEND early adopter program and gain immediate access, with the platform available for open subscription in early 2021.

AUSHIELD was supported by the AustCyber Projects Fund.

"AUSHIELD is a fantastic example of investing in sovereign capability. The AustCyber Projects Fund is a $15 million, three-year initiative designed to help the Australian cybersecurity industry grow and take ideas globally," comments AustCyber CEO Michelle Price.

Another recipient from the Projects Fund is Sydney-based security firm Haventec, in partnership with health tech firm 23Strands.

The two companies will work on a 12-month project to share genomics data whilst ensuring that it cannot be stolen or misused. The project is called eConsent for Genomics.

"In simple terms, Haventec's platform reduces the exposure to risk. We have solved the paradox of keeping sensitive data safe, while supporting increasing demands, and consumer expectations, for openness, connectivity, performance and privacy," explains Haventec CEO Dave Maunsell.

The research aims to correlate negative and positive health outcomes to specific DNA profiles with the ability to better predict an individual's potential outcome should they become infected with COVID-19.

23Strands CEO Mark Grosser says that e-consent platforms such as this could benefit the entire industry.

"The information managed in this pilot platform includes; patient personal information, patient consent instructions, patient medical analysis, diagnostics and test reports. We provide genome analysis of DNA and our platform correlates outcomes for patients based on medical, clinical and genetics analysis."