Op-ed

The Optus breach raises critical questions. Do we have an effective National Cyber Security Strategy? Is corporate Australia proactive and prepared for the increasing cyber threats? What are the correct legislative incentives to get executives to prioritise cyber security investments? The biggest question of all is who’s data is it anyway? Who owns the data that Optus had a duty of care to protect? Is it the individual, the business or the Commonwealth?

With a cost-of-living crisis on the horizon, there are risks in the BNPL space. Most of us will know the feeling of gazing longingly at the sartorial object of our desire (close your eyes, and you can probably think of an example), while knowing we don’t have the funds for it. It used to be the case that you’d have to wait till you received your pay cheque to get that sweet shopping dopamine hit. But when modern Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) fintech firms exploded onto the market, shoppers no longer had to wait. With companies like Klarna, Afterpay and Zip Co, and the US-based Affirm, they could make the purchase straight away. 

It’s been a long, hard, and sometimes lonely road for CISOs to get the rest of the company on board and recognise the value of cybersecurity. Historically cybersecurity has not been a priority due to a lack of awareness or willingness to act from the C-suite and boardroom. But the recent devastating data breaches suffered by Optus and Medicare and a general increase in prevalence of attacks, has led to significantly better awareness and recognition of the cyber risk that all firms face, big and small. The first hurdle has been overcome, but the next challenge is transforming this awareness into tangible actions and increased budgets.

The echoes of World Environment Day may have faded, but the urgency to address the environmental challenges across all industries, including tech businesses, reverberates louder than ever. With the exponential growth of information and the subsequent rise in demand for datacenters, it is crucial for firms to tackle the environmental footprint they leave behind.

As workplaces across the country bring workers back to the office small issues are becoming big problems and creating significant productivity concerns for businesses such as; Poor dress, Tardiness, Hygiene, Language, Physical appearance, and Inappropriate language. These issues may sound trivial, but when you are part of a team working with people day in and day out, they start to grind on people’s nerves and can cause massive implosions. Even worse, if these people are representing businesses at stakeholder, client and new business meetings, these issues can be extremely damaging for a brand. Business can be lost.

As the United Kingdom begins to settle after the changes brought on by Brexit, it is clear that many traditional avenues of export – and by extension business growth – have been closed off. Goods and services trade with EU partners is declining, but other regions are now rising to fill the breach.

We used to have more distance from cybercrime and things going generally wrong with technology. In the real world, issues were just dealt with by ‘the tech people’ and in the fictional world, we enjoyed – albeit with some anxiety – what seemed to be fantastic and impossible depictions of dystopian tech futures played out on the cinema screen.

Dear Prime Minister, I ask that you take action to protect Australian Franchisees, by establishing a public register of Franchisee feedback which scores Franchise businesses annually on their support and treatment of Franchisees, and also that you act to protect Franchisees against gross mistreatment, as in the G.J Gardener Homes case.

Sub-saharan Africa accounts for the least crypto transaction volume of any region studied by Chainalysis, with $100.6 billion in on-chain volume received between July 2021 and June 2022. This represents only 2% of global activity, and 16% growth over the year prior. However, numbers can be deceiving, as deeper analysis reveals that Africa contains some of the most well-developed cryptocurrency markets of any region, with deep penetration and integration of cryptocurrency into everyday financial activity for many users.

Ugandan music faces tough competition from West Africa, South Africa, and occasionally, Tanzanians, Kenyans and Rwandans. It always feels like every time I'm tuning back into the 256, many people on the internet are crying to promoters to bring some new Naija kid on the block.