Pause Fest – tagged as the world’s leading festival for business and creativity – started this week and runs for a full 12 days with talks about a wide range of topics in tech and business. You don’t want to miss out on hearing about the next big change because let’s face it – technology is changing our lives every day.
As the CEO of Pause Fest, George Hedon, says, the festival “… is all about bringing together different worlds and different ideas, to unpack how technology and innovation can be used for good.”
Women Love Tech is featured at Pause Fest when our CEO, Robyn Foyster, is speaking with a group of women entrepreneurs next Monday, 8th March, at 11am on the topic: Change is coming: The rise of Female Founders.
This discussion will be moderated by Jules Brooke, Founder & Host of She’s The Boss and the three women in the panel are:
- Anne Miles, Founder, Suits & Sneakers
- Noga Edlestein, Co-Founder, UrbanYou
- Robyn Foyster, Director & Founder, Foyster Media
As Pause Fest reminds us – things are always changing. On the festival’s website they remind us it’s at places like these we learn about new things and get the jump on the next momentous change.
Because, for example let’s not forget:
Sony missed the MP3
Coke and Pepsi missed energy drinks
Apple consumed Kodak
Borders missed eBooks
Travel agents didn’t foresee online booking
Banks missed digital currency
Netflix devoured Blockbuster
Uber ate the taxi industry
Dick Smith wasn’t ready for Kogan
Hotels weren’t ready for Airbnb
Talk about online abuse and how to tackle it
The first talk of Pause Fest was on earlier this week and it was titled: How technology tackles stalking and helps survivors of domestic violence. It focused on the Australian government’s plans to bring in new laws to make serious online abuse illegal. These new laws will make Australia one of the first countries to do this.
The talk was led by Kaspersky’s Security Researcher, Noushin Shabab, the CEO of Wesnet, Karen Bentley, and moderated by David Swan, Technology Editor at The Australian.
The Australian government is planning to release a new Online Safety Act will make it illegal to post ‘seriously harmful content’ on websites and social media. Plans are underway to introduce fines of up to $110,000 to cyber bullies and online trolls.
At the talk today, both Shabab and Bentley said this new law will tackle digital stalking and help to protect survivors of domestic violence.
Shabab said: “In the last two years our researchers have detected 1140 affected users with cases of stalkerware in Australia. Globally the US sat in 3rd place and the UK in 9th place with cases of stalkerware.”
Shabab said the pandemic showed a pattern of stalking cases being slightly lower than the year before but there are still high numbers.
Coalition Against Stalkerware formed
The Coalition Against Stalkerware was formed in 2019 to make it easier for organisations working to combat domestic violence to communicate with the IT security community. The 10 founding organisations of this organisation, including Kaspersky, are committed to fighting domestic violence, stalking and harassment by addressing the use of stalkerware and raising public awareness.
Karen Bentley is the CEO of the Australian peak body for domestic and family violence services, Wesnet, and she is the first Australian member to join the Coalition Against Stalkerware.
Bentley said this morning: “In our national survey of 442 frontline practitioners, 99.3% have clients experiencing technology abuse. In Australia, we can safely say that survivors of domestic violence are almost certainly experiencing some form of abuse through technology. Worryingly, 70% of respondents also saw stalking co-occurring with technology abuse.”
Shabab added: “Perpetrators know about stalkerware and how to use it. The real concern is that most everyday people do not know how to detect if they are being spied on, or how to protect themselves from online stalking. This has to change.”
TinyCheck is a free open source tool which detect stalkerware
Shabab said today that Kaspersky has released a new tool to help not-for-profits to protect survivors of domestic violence even better. The tool is called TinyCheck and it’s a free, easy-to-use, open source tool which detects stalkerware and spyware.
The first of its kind, Shabab presented TinyCheck as a tool which can detect stalkerware and spyware – and then inform those who are using it without the perpetrators knowledge.
In order to make use of TinyCheck, a computer with a Raspberry Pi OS Buster is needed. It also has the capability to detect geo-tracking apps on mobile devices as well.
To read about the TinyCheck installation process, you can visit here.
About Pause Fest
Pause Fest founder and CEO George Hedon said, “Pause Fest is all about bringing together different worlds and different ideas, to unpack how technology and innovation can be used for good and where it requires greater insight, consideration and regulation to keep people happy and healthy.”
About WESNET
Wesnet is a national women’s peak body with over 300 members that are women’s frontline agencies specialising in family and, domestic violence, and sexual violence. Wesnet is the leading non-government organisation in Australia strategically addressing Tech Abuse against women in threatening and violent situations. For more information visit here.
About Noushin Shabab
Noushin Shabab is a Senior Security Research at Kaspersky ANZ. She specialises in reverse engineering and targeted attack investigations. Working as part of the the Global Research & Analysis Team, her research focuses on advanced cyber criminal activities and targeted attacks in Asia Pacific. Prior to joining Kaspersky, Noushin used to work as a senior malware analyst and software developer for a prominent security software company in Middle East. She has first-hand knowledge of rootkit analysis, detection techniques and APT attack investigations.
She is also a member of the Australian Women in Security Network (AWSN) which aims to support and inspire women in the Australian security industry. Shabab was the first mentor to provide technical workshops and mentorship for the AWSN female cadets program which aims to bridge the skill gap between universities and industry of security.ions.
For more on Pause Fest and it’s list of speakers on business and creativity over the next 12 days, visit here.
For more from Women Love Tech about cybersecurity – including careers in cybersecurity – take a look here.
