Embargo Dates:

5pm Monday 16 December 2024 to 9am Monday 13 January 2025

Whilst iseek and our value-add partners will continue to accept orders over this period, customers will experience an extended delivery timeframe.

Please note, this may affect order delivery times both before and after the embargo.

If you do have orders that have been confirmed to be delivered during the embargo period, please ensure your sites contact details are provided and they are available during the holiday season.

iseek services

During embargo the following services and activities will not occur:

• Scheduled maintenance activities
• Core network changes
• Core cloud infrastructure changes
• Provisioning of all new services
• Data centre cabling or underfloor works
• Data centre power connectivity work
• Data centre additional cabinet installations
• Data centre third-party carrier activities

iseek will be providing the following services and activities during the embargo period:

• All fault restoration activities
• Cloud service provisioning (on an exception basis as agreed with individual customers)

We’re here to help

For further clarification about the embargo period, please contact your Account Manager or our Service Team.

Please note, all existing iseek services will continue to be supported by our 24/7/365 Network operation Centre (NOC) contactable on 1300 661 668, or

The post iseek and iseek partner embargo period over the festive season appeared first on iseek.

Ms Brown has returned to her home state of Queensland after two decades in senior finance roles with Lendlease Group (ASX:LLC), latterly as Commercial and Finance Director at the international property giant’s London headquarters.

iseek CEO Scott Hicks said the search was part of a company-wide restructure which sets the scene for further growth.

“Linda brings unique experience in financial management at the highest levels of a multinational construction and real estate company,” Mr Hicks said.

“Her financial management credentials are outstanding, but beyond that she has focused on building strong relationships with government clients and investors, delivery of capital strategies, and managing one of the largest government infrastructure financing facilities in the UK. She has led large finance teams and multi-billion dollar projects.

“We are delighted to have Linda on board as we enter our own new phase of growth. Her experience makes her the perfect fit for the iseek team.”

Born and raised in Rockhampton, Ms Brown started her career at PwC in Townsville where she qualified as a chartered accountant after graduating with a Bachelor of Business majoring in accounting.

“Lendlease offered me a career that has spanned the breadth of their business both in Australia and the UK, from development and construction as well as corporate head office,” Ms Brown said.

“My most recent role was as Commercial and Finance Director for a $10 billion urban regeneration project in East London. I have enjoyed my career with Lendlease but my husband and I wanted our two daughters to experience the Queensland lifestyle, so the offer from iseek could not have come at a better time.”

Ms Brown looks forward to taking an active role in mentoring staff across the data centre business, which now has operations across the country, having acquired Mr Hicks’ YourDC business in South Australia in 2022.

“It’s very exciting to join iseek and I look forward to using the corporate and governance experience I’ve gained within a large structure to make an impact,” Ms Brown said.

“It’s the ideal role for me at this stage in my career and super exciting to be helping to drive a business that’s always looking to the future of technology, cloud platforms and AI.”

The post iseek Strengthens Leadership Team with CFO Appointment appeared first on iseek.

Mr Hicks takes the CEO role at iseek having been at the forefront of connecting Australians to information sources for over 30 years. As Managing Director of Adam Internet, he led the South Australian ISP for 16 years, building a workforce of over 200 before the company’s sale to iiNet/TPG in 2013. In 2015 he brought together a consortium of industry leaders to fund YourDC, quickly building the business as the State’s premier private data centre operator.

Under Hicks’ leadership, iseek aims to expand its data centre portfolio to further consolidate its position as a leading digital infrastructure operator in the Australian market.

iseek’s portfolio currently includes seven data centre facilities across Brisbane, Northern Queensland, Sydney, and Adelaide.

Mr Hicks said data centres had become an investment hotspot as government and enterprise sectors increasingly turn to outsourced colocation, embrace cloud solutions, and harness the power of artificial intelligence.

“The past year has been about strengthening and integrating our teams across all our facilities, and it’s been a delight to work with such experienced people,” Mr Hicks said. “As we move to this new phase, my goal is to make sure every person plays a role and benefits from future growth and continued opportunities on the horizon.”

Jason Gomersall, who founded iseek 25 years ago and has held the CEO title over that time, will continue to build the company’s sales and customer relationship management function as Executive Director.

“Jason has done a fantastic job as the chief advocate for the business, attracting blue-chip clients that include all tiers of government and some of Australia’s iconic international brands,” Mr Hicks said.

“We both saw the amazing synergies when our companies merged through acquisition. Now we will invest in building on a strong company culture as we embark on this new growth path.”

Mr Gomersall said the changes at the top herald a number of key executive appointments to be announced in the coming weeks. “We are in a very good position to leverage our existing relationships with our Global Cloud customers as well as our Enterprise and Government customers,” Mr Gomersall said. “The next phase for iseek looks very exciting with the transformative impact of AI on data centre demand.”

The post Scott Hicks Takes Helm at iseek to Position Digital Infrastructure Group for Long-Term Growth appeared first on iseek.

Embargo Dates:

12am Monday 18 December 2023 to 9am Monday 8 January 2023

Whilst iseek and our value-add partners will continue to accept orders over this period, customers will experience an extended delivery timeframe.

Please note, this may affect order delivery times both before and after the embargo.

If you do have orders that have been confirmed to be delivered during the embargo period, please ensure your sites contact details are provided and they are available during the holiday season.

iseek services

During embargo the following services and activities will not occur:

• Scheduled maintenance activities
• Core network changes
• Core cloud infrastructure changes
• Provisioning of all new services
• Data centre cabling or underfloor works
• Data centre power connectivity work
• Data centre additional cabinet installations
• Data centre third-party carrier activities

iseek will be providing the following services and activities during the embargo period:

• All fault restoration activities
• Cloud service provisioning (on an exception basis as agreed with individual customers)

We’re here to help

For further clarification about the embargo period, please contact your Account Manager or our Service Team.

Please note, all existing iseek services will continue to be supported by our 24/7/365 Network operation Centre (NOC) contactable on 1300 661 668, or

The post iseek and iseek partner embargo period over the festive season appeared first on iseek.

Cloud Buzz – HashiCorp, Terraform and OpenTofu

In August, when HashiCorp revealed changes to its Terraform license, it caused a real stir in the open-source community. In fact, it posed a significant threat to startups built on this popular open-source project. In response, the community rallied, penning a manifesto in just a few weeks and soon after, they introduced an official fork named OpenTF.

Today, this group took another leap forward when the Linux Foundation announced OpenTofu – the official name for the Terraform fork. This project will now permanently exist under the foundation’s stewardship as an open-source project. Concurrently, the project declared its intention to apply for membership in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

The foundation issued a statement saying, “OpenTofu is an open and community-led rebuttal to Terraform’s recent license change from a Mozilla Public License v2.0 (MPLv2) to a Business Source License v1.1. It offers everyone a dependable open-source alternative under a neutral governance model.”

Yevgeniy (Jim) Brikman explained that HashiCorp left the breakaway group with no other option but to launch the fork. He credited HashiCorp for its impressive work on the project but emphasised that foundational building blocks like Terraform must always be open source. The community was taken aback when the license was switched to a non-open-source license.

Brikman and Bansal both reiterated their commitment to the community and the open-source ethos. They expressed their wish to support a project that provides an alternative to Terraform that the community will continue to own. By making OpenTofu a part of the Linux Foundation and aiming for acceptance by CNCF, they hope to ensure the project’s longevity as an open-source initiative.

As for HashiCorp, they believe they were acting in the best interest of their core business. In a blog post dated August 10th, HashiCorp’s co-founder Armon Dadgar justified their decision, citing issues with vendors exploiting pure open-source models for personal commercial gain, without contributing materially in return.

Brikman acknowledges the importance of attracting bigger companies for the project’s success. He believes this will happen naturally as the project hits key milestones and gains community traction. He envisions a future where the project fork might add unique features, differentiating it from what HashiCorp has built.

He revealed that tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are currently observing the situation. But conversations are ongoing and the plan is to convince them of their seriousness about the project and gradually draw them in. He believes in executing the project correctly and gradually winning their trust.

A public roadmap is in place, with plans for an alpha release. Brikman encourages people to visit the OpenTofu website, download OpenTofu, and start testing it. A stable release is imminent, and once available, it will drive adoption, which he hopes will encourage the big players to step in. Read more here

Inside Scoop – iseek’s cloud storage

When it comes to cloud storage solutions, the names that often come to mind are Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 and Microsoft Azure Blob. While these are undeniably robust solutions, there are alternatives that offer comparable features, at more competitive rates. One such alternative is iseek’s Objectstore solution. This is an S3-compatible cloud storage solution that stands as a viable alternative to the Hyperscalers, especially for Australian Businesses.

iseek’s Objectstore solution is designed to provide businesses with a superior cloud storage solution that is both cost-effective and reliable. This S3-compatible storage solution is housed in iseek’s data centres in Brisbane and Townsville. By choosing a local provider like iseek, businesses can benefit from faster data access times, improved data sovereignty, and the assurance that their data is protected by Australian laws.

A notable advantage of iseek’s Objectstore solution is its transparent and cost-effective pricing model. Unlike AWS and Microsoft, which may charge ingress/egress fees and API fees, iseek’s Objectstore solution has a flat fee pricing model. Customers are not charged any ingress/egress fees or API fees. This means that businesses can transfer data in and out of the Objectstore without incurring any additional costs, a feature particularly beneficial for businesses that require frequent data migrations or transfers.

The pricing for iseek’s Objectstore solution starts as low as $.020 per gigabyte (Gb). By eliminating the complexities of tiered and variable pricing models, iseek provides businesses with predictability and control over their cloud storage costs.

Furthermore, businesses that opt for iseek’s Objectstore solution will have their bills issued in Australian dollars (AUD). This eliminates any concerns about fluctuating exchange rates that can affect the costs of services billed in other currencies. It also simplifies financial planning and budgeting for these businesses.

iseek’s ObjectStore solution provides a viable alternative to the Hyperscaler cloud storage offerings. With our S3-compatible storage solution hosted locally in Queensland, the absence of ingress/egress and API fees, a flat fee pricing model, and billing in AUD, iseek’s Objectstore solution offers an attractive choice for businesses seeking a cost-effective, reliable, and locally-hosted cloud storage solution.

Trend Tracker:  All about AI

Visa has revealed plans to invest $100 million into companies that are developing generative AI technologies and applications which could revolutionise the future of commerce and payments. The investments will be made via Visa Ventures, Visa’s global corporate investment branch which has been running for 16 years.

Visa has a long history with AI, claiming to have pioneered its use in payments since 1993. Generative AI, the particular subset of AI in which Visa is interested, is trained on large amounts of existing data to produce text, images or other types of content in response to text prompts.

David Rolf, head of Visa Ventures, stated that generative AI could potentially be “one of the most transformative technologies of our time.” He also said that Visa Ventures had a great deal of flexibility regarding how many investments it would make from the new fund and what the average check size would be.

Visa is particularly interested in backing companies which are using generative AI to solve tangible problems in the areas of commerce, payments, and fintech. This includes B2B processes related to payments as well as infrastructure that could have a significant impact on commerce. Read more here on Visa’s plan.

However AI is still an emerging technology, and for all emerging technology it’s wise to keep an eye on the Gartner Hype Cycle.

Sector Spotlight – Lights off at MGM

MGM Resorts has ended a 10-day computer shutdown caused by a cyberattack aimed at its data, including hotel reservations and credit card processing. The casino giant made the announcement on Wednesday, stating that all of its hotels and casinos are now operating normally.

The cyberattack was first detected on 10th September. Last week, rival casino owner Caesars Entertainment also revealed to federal regulators that it had suffered a cyberattack on 7th September. While its casino and online operations were not disrupted, the company could not guarantee that personal information of tens of millions of customers had not been compromised.

Caesars, based in Reno, is understood to have paid $15 million of a $30 million ransom demanded by a group called Scattered Spider to safeguard the data.

Details about the extent of the breach at MGM have not been disclosed, including the type of information that may have been compromised and the cost to the company. However, Gregory Moody, professor and director of the cybersecurity programme at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, suggested that the computer shutdown could have cost the company up to $8 million per day, totalling $80 million.

Despite this, Moody also noted that MGM Resorts reports annual revenues exceeding $14 billion, equating to at least $270 million in revenues per week.

On Wednesday, the company reported that systems handling resort services, dining, entertainment, pools and spas were operational and its website and app were taking dining and spa reservations while the company worked to restore hotel booking and loyalty reward functions. Read more here.

News Bites – Everything is Awesome?

Lego, the empire built on plastic, has faced a significant setback in its quest for sustainability. From their inception, Lego bricks have been created from oil, a fossil fuel, using acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) which is neither biodegradable nor easily recyclable, leading to environmental pollution in the form of microplastics.

Once hailed for its durability and versatility, plastic has become a problematic material for the toy manufacturer, currently valued at $7.4 billion, due to increasing environmental concerns and the global push to reduce plastic pollution.

Despite the company’s commitment to a green transition, recent attempts to replace ABS with recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET), a material derived from recycled plastic bottles, have fallen short of expectations. The production of rPET presented numerous challenges, including difficulties with colouring the product and scaling production.

Furthermore, the material required significant pre- and post-treatment, including an energy-intensive drying process to remove moisture. Upon further evaluation, Lego researchers uncovered that the manufacturing of rPET, along with the installation of new equipment, would actually result in a higher carbon footprint than continuing the use of ABS.

As a result, the company’s ambitious project to switch to more sustainable materials has been halted, forcing Lego to reassess its approach to environmental sustainability. Full article on Wired.

And finally, as always, feedback is welcome. Which topic was of interest? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Or just a chat on tech? Please let me know, have a great day and enjoy!

The post The Cloud Connection September 2023 appeared first on iseek.

Cloud Buzz – Danish CSP suffer ransomware attack

CloudNordic and AzeroCloud, Danish cloud hosting providers, have suffered a crippling ransomware attack, resulting in the loss of all customer data and widespread disruption. The attack, which occurred on August 18, 2023, saw criminal hackers infiltrate and shut down all systems, including websites, email systems, and customer data. Martin Haslund Johansson, director of AzeroCloud and CloudNordic, expressed his devastation at the incident, stating that he does not expect any customers to remain with them after this ordeal. The ransom demanded by the hackers amounts to around $156,000.

Both companies, which are owned by Certiqa Holding, have replaced their usual websites with a text post explaining the situation. They have also made it clear that they will not meet the financial demands of the ransom. While efforts are being made to assess the damage and potential for data restoration, the outlook appears grim. CloudNordic and AzeroCloud have admitted that it has been impossible to recreate most of the lost data, leaving the majority of their customers in a dire situation.

The cause of the attack is believed to be compromised servers that went undetected, followed by a data centre migration that connected these servers to the internal network used for managing all of their systems. Through this network, the hackers gained access to central administration systems and backup systems, encrypting all server disks and rendering them inaccessible. It is unclear which data centres CloudNordic and AzeroCloud operated in, but they have emphasised that there is no evidence of data being stolen.

In an effort to restore operations, the hosting companies have re-established blank systems, such as name servers, web servers, and mail servers. However, these systems do not contain any data from previous customers. CloudNordic and AzeroCloud have offered to restore customers on the same name servers and provide new web and mail servers, but without any previous data. They have also suggested that customers attempt to restore data from local backups or utilise the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine as a potential source for copying data. The companies deeply regret the situation and express gratitude to their loyal customers for their support over the years. Read more here

Inside Scoop – iseek Appoints Cloud Services Expert Mark Pratley as Chief Operating Officer

Leading Australian digital infrastructure operator iseek has appointed industry veteran Mark Pratley as Chief Operating Officer (COO) to spearhead the company’s growth and diversification in the digital services ecosystem.  

Mr Pratley brings 30 years’ experience in cloud services, strategy, and new product development to iseek, gained in senior leadership roles at Oracle, Telstra, IBM, Kaz Group and Advantra.

Mr Pratley delivered substantial earnings and efficiency improvements as Regional Director at Oracle, more than doubling the company’s cloud footprint to 13 regions and implementing global data-driven customer engagement programs. Prior to Oracle, he was a General Manager for Telstra Product driving the successful market entry into IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings with Telstra’s Cloud Services, a globally leading shared infrastructure platform, entirely locally operated which saw Annualised Recurring Revenue (ARR) surpass $200 million within three years.

As iseek COO, Mr Pratley will be responsible for the development of channel partners and customers while also improving the company’s critical infrastructure operations across Queensland, NSW and South Australia. Read more here

Trend Tracker:  Amazon maintains stance on WFH

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has sent a clear message to employees who are resistant to returning to the office: “It’s not going to work out for you.” This statement was reportedly made during a recent meeting.

Despite facing backlash from employees, Amazon implemented a policy in May requiring employees to work in the office for three days a week. Thousands of workers expressed their dissatisfaction by signing a petition and even staging a walkout in protest.

However, Jassy’s stance on the matter remains unchanged. In a leaked recording of the meeting, he emphasised the need for employees to “disagree and commit,” stating that those who are unwilling to do so may not be a good fit for Amazon. He also mentioned that his decision to bring employees back to the office was a judgment call and that those who refuse to comply are free to leave the company.

In addition to this strict policy, Amazon has been taking measures to enforce in-person attendance. Leaked messages revealed that the company may force a “voluntary resignation” on employees who refuse to relocate to the designated office hubs where their teams are based. Some employees have decided to quit on their own, while others have received warnings about their attendance.

It remains to be seen how this steadfast approach will affect Amazon’s workforce. As the debate over remote work continues, the company’s decision to prioritise in-person collaboration may have repercussions both internally and within the broader industry. Read more here

Sector Spotlight – Who’s listening?

It may be time to swap that mechanical keyboard your colleagues don’t quite appreciate as much as you! A team of UK researchers has successfully trained a deep learning model to interpret keystrokes based solely on audio recordings.

By capturing the sound of keystrokes to train the model, the researchers achieved an impressive 95% accuracy in predicting typed text. However, when using Zoom to train the system, the accuracy dropped slightly to 93%.

This research highlights the potential risk of acoustic side-channel attacks, where sensitive information such as passwords and messages can be intercepted by individuals within hearing distance. Whether recording someone in person or virtually through a video call, the abundance of microphone-bearing devices like smartphones has made such attacks simpler than ever before.

The combination of easily accessible audio recordings and advancements in machine learning technology has made these types of attacks not only feasible but also more dangerous than previously realised. Hackers armed with nothing more than a microphone and a machine learning algorithm can potentially gain access to valuable and confidential information.

The researchers conducted their experiments using a MacBook Pro, pressing each of the 36 individual keys 25 times. This formed the basis for the machine learning model to recognise the association between keystroke sounds and characters. The recorded audio, captured via a phone in close proximity to the laptop and through Zoom, exhibited enough subtle differences in waveforms for the model to accurately identify each key.

To mitigate the risk of keystroke hacking, the researchers recommend making changes to your typing style, using randomised passwords rather than those containing complete words, incorporating randomly generated fake keystrokes during voice call-based attacks, and employing biometric tools such as fingerprint or face scanning. Read more here

News Bites – Kevin Mitnick passes away

Kevin Mitnick, one of the most renowned hackers in the history of cybersecurity, passed away last month at the age of 59 after battling pancreatic cancer. Mitnick’s hacking exploits were legendary, inspiring multiple films, including “WarGames,” which was based on allegations that he hacked into the computer systems at North American Aerospace Defense Command as a teenager.

Mitnick’s hacking journey took a turn when he was arrested in 1988 for stealing $1 million worth of proprietary software from Digital Equipment Corporation. After serving time in prison and violating probation, he went on the run, breaking into the computer systems of various corporations, cell phone companies, and educational institutions.

Despite the chaos he caused, Mitnick and his supporters argued that his actions were driven by intellectual curiosity rather than malicious intent or financial gain. In 1999, he reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, resulting in a prison sentence and probation.

Upon his release in 2000, Mitnick transformed into a white-hat hacker, using his expertise to assist businesses in protecting their systems. He became the chief hacking officer and partial owner of the tech security firm KnowBe4, founded by his close friend Stu Sjouwerman.

Mitnick’s hacking career was documented in his memoir, “Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker,” which was published in 2011. Fascinating read of the full story of his arrest at Takedown

And finally, as always, feedback is welcome. Which topic was of interest? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Or just a chat on tech? Please let me know, have a great day and enjoy!

The post The Cloud Connection August 2023 appeared first on iseek.

Leading Australian digital infrastructure operator iseek has appointed industry veteran Mark Pratley as Chief Operating Officer (COO) to spearhead the company’s growth and diversification in the digital services ecosystem.  

Mr Pratley brings 30 years’ experience in cloud services, strategy, and new product development to iseek, gained in senior leadership roles at Oracle, Telstra, IBM, Kaz Group and Advantra.

Mr Pratley delivered substantial earnings and efficiency improvements as Regional Director at Oracle, more than doubling the company’s cloud footprint to 13 regions and implementing global data-driven customer engagement programs. Prior to Oracle, he was a General Manager for Telstra Product driving the successful market entry into IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings with Telstra’s Cloud Services, a globally leading shared infrastructure platform, entirely locally operated which saw Annualised Recurring Revenue (ARR) surpass $200 million within three years.

As iseek COO, Mr Pratley will be responsible for the development of channel partners and customers while also improving the company’s critical infrastructure operations across Queensland, NSW and South Australia.

iseek CEO Jason Gomersall said, “Mark’s hands on experience leading companies into new growth areas will be an asset for the business as we continue to scale and diversify our digital services offering to meet evolving customer needs. His success in translating complex customer needs into new products and features will give iseek a competitive edge in the highly dynamic digital infrastructure and services sector, increasing our value to our government and enterprise customers.”

Commenting on his appointment, Mark Pratley said, “I’m thrilled to be joining iseek as the company enters its next growth phase, following its recent acquisition of South Australian data centre operator YourDC. Critical infrastructure has never been more important and I’m passionate about building products that make a tangible difference for our enterprise and government customers. I look forward to leveraging our competitive advantages to assist more businesses to improve the flexibility, scalability and efficiency of their digital infrastructure.”

Mr Pratley holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of New England.

The post iseek Appoints Cloud Services Expert Mark Pratley as Chief Operating Officer appeared first on iseek.

Cloud Buzz – iseek awarded VMware Cloud Verified

iseek has achieved VMware Cloud Verified status. 

VMware Cloud Verified means that iseek has met all of VMware’s requirements for cloud infrastructure design and configuration. VMware Cloud Verified Partners are able to provide superior cloud solutions and services to clients with unparalleled performance. Along with iseek’s management and support capabilities, this means your mission-critical workloads will outperform the competition, stay cutting-edge with enterprise-grade hardware, and provide the elasticity and scalability that VMware is known for.

Criteria to Becoming a VMware Cloud Verified Partner

In order to qualify as a VMware Cloud Verified Partner, iseek has met the following three criteria:

• iseek meets the requirements for VMware Cloud Provider Platform (VCPP).
• iseek’s VMware infrastructure design has been validated to meet requirements for performance and service availability.
• iseek meets the training requirements for our personnel, both VMware Engineering and Sales certifications.

Why is VMware Cloud Verification Important to You?

iseek’s VMware Cloud Verified status is incredibly important for customers. It signifies that iseek has met all infrastructure and software requirements. For our customers, that means:

• You can compete in your market with superior elasticity and scalability for your workload demands.
• You can quickly spin up or down workloads for test environments or go to market with solutions even more quickly.

Choose VMware Cloud at iseek

iseek’s Cloud is a fully managed enterprise-grade environment that offers:

• Fully managed infrastructure and virtual machines with 24/7/365 on-site support.
• Redundancy at the software and hardware levels.
• High Speed networking.
• DDoS Attack Protection.
• Veeam Backups.
• DRaaS Options.
• Secure firewall and load balancing.

Inside Scoop – Adelaide Cloud zone is live

Our network of iseek Cloud zones underpins the important work we do for our customers. With 5 zones, 7 Data Centres and numerous points of presence available to serve customers across Australia, iseek’s Cloud infrastructure supports digital transformations for organisations nationwide.

Recently we announced enhancements to our offerings, including the introduction of the VMware Verified certification and the launch of VMware on iseek. Now, we’re bringing these improvements even closer to our customers in Adelaide with the creation of a new Cloud zone.

This platform is more than just a product – it’s a tool for business transformation. By leveraging our latest offerings, organisations can fundamentally change their approach to doing business. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing productivity, or innovating services, the potential impact is significant.

Trend Tracker:  WhatGPT? Evolution of AI tools for malicious use

The rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for malevolent purposes is a cause for concern in the cybersecurity industry. The well known AI, ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has security controls in place to prevent misuse. Yet this hasn’t stopped researchers discovering ways to force ChatGPT to respond to queries it would normally steer clear of, this is known as jailbreaking

However, earlier this year it was found that a hacker had created his own chatbot with a malicious bent: WormGPT, a chatbot designed to assist cybercriminals. In a worrying trend, the hacker had made WormGPT available for purchase online. Marketed as an AI model without ethical guardrails, WormGPT proved to be a powerful tool capable of producing expert phishing campaigns.

Adding to the concern is the recent identification of another chatbot, FraudGPT, created with a similar malevolent intent. The author touts FraudGPT as exclusively targeted for offensive security purposes, such as crafting spear phishing emails, the creation of cracking tools, and carding activities.

These tools are now readily available for purchase on dark web marketplaces under subscription basis, making them accessible to a broad range of potential malefactors. The ease of availability of such tools presents a significant challenge to cybersecurity firms and organisations worldwide, forcing them to constantly evolve their defence mechanisms against increasingly sophisticated threats.

The growing use of AI for malicious purposes underscores the need for stringent regulations and ethical guidelines in AI development. As technology continues to evolve, so does the dark side of it. The cybersecurity industry must remain vigilant, investing in research and development to stay ahead of the threats posed by these unregulated AI tools.

Sector Spotlight – Exchange Online Breached

A recent hack, disclosed earlier this month, has raised alarm among officials. The attackers managed to use a stolen or falsified Microsoft signing key, which the company employs to verify its customers. This key allowed the hackers to impersonate any Microsoft Exchange or Outlook email user and gain permission to access employee email accounts.

Security researchers from the cloud security firm Wiz scrutinised the method employed by the hackers, as detailed by Microsoft. They concluded that anyone in possession of the signing key could have potentially expanded their access and signed into other widely used Microsoft cloud services, including SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive. The compromised Microsoft Account (MSA) key could have enabled the hacker to forge access tokens for multiple types of Azure Active Directory applications, said Wiz in a blog post outlining its discoveries.

The company further added that this includes any application that supports personal account authentication, including customer applications that offer the “login with Microsoft” option. Although Microsoft has since revoked the key to prevent its use in future attacks, Wiz pointed out that the attackers may have left behind backdoors in applications that could enable them to return. The firm also stated that some software could still acknowledge a session initiated by an expired key. Read more here

News Bites – Fan demand, #BenderGate and the return of an old favourite

In the futuristic world of Matt Groening’s animated series Futurama, people live forever by having their heads placed in liquid-filled jars. 

Futurama is the TV show equivalent, having miraculously cheated death on multiple occasions, and living on for another season despite #BenderGate!

Episode 1 aired last week on Disney+ for a trip down nostalgia lane.

And finally, as always, feedback is welcome. Which topic was of interest? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Or just a chat on tech? Please let me know, have a great day and enjoy!

The post The Cloud Connection July 2023 appeared first on iseek.

Cloud Buzz – Launch of VMware on iseek

Here at iseek, we recently announced the launch of a new product, VMWare on iseek. The innovative solution aims to provide a sovereign, local, and highly competitive alternative to the hyperscaler VMware offerings.

VMWare on iseek is a cutting-edge cloud solution that combines the power of VMWare, a leading virtualisation and cloud computing software provider, with the robust infrastructure of iseek, a prominent Australian data centre and cloud services company. The partnership’s primary goal is to offer our customers a reliable, secure, and scalable cloud platform that supports their digital transformation journey while ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with local regulations.

A key aspect of VMWare on iseek that sets it apart from our competitors is the focus on data sovereignty. By providing a locally hosted solution, iseek ensures that customers’ data remains within Australia, thereby safeguarding sensitive information and adhering to strict data protection laws. This data sovereignty is particularly crucial for businesses operating in regulated industries, such as finance, healthcare, and government, where data security and privacy are of paramount importance.

The launch of VMWare on iseek is a game-changer in the local markets, as it provides a local, in state offering, competitive pricing and a range of features, including disaster recovery, high availability, and seamless integration with other VMWare products. This comprehensive offering enables iseek to cater to a wide array of customer needs and provides an attractive choice for Enterprise and Government seeking a cost-effective and powerful cloud platform.

Inside Scoop – iseek nears completion of NSX-T Migration

In a significant milestone, iseek is on the verge of completing its migration to VMware NSX-T Data Centre, a cutting-edge network virtualization and security platform. The move to NSX-T promises to deliver a host of benefits our customers including:

Enhanced Network Security With NSX-T’s micro-segmentation capabilities, our Cloud customers can enjoy finer-grained control over their network traffic, reducing the risk of cyber-attacks and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.

Improved Agility The NSX-T platform allows on the creation, modification, and deletion of virtual networks on-demand, enabling our customers to respond to changing business needs quickly and efficiently.

Multi-cloud and Multi-hypervisor Support NSX-T offers seamless integration with multiple cloud platforms and hypervisors, providing our customers with greater flexibility and choice when it comes to deploying multi-cloud solutions

Simplified Operations NSX-T’s centralised management console streamlines network configuration and monitoring, reducing the complexity of managing virtual networks in the cloud

Advanced Load Balancing NSX-T’s load balancing capabilities help to distribute network traffic evenly across resources, increasing application availability and performance of cloud hosted services.

As the migration to NSX-T Data Centre nears completion, I will be sending out further updates on how you can deploy the new era of advanced network capabilities and enhanced security.

Trend Tracker:  Top Cloud Trends that shaped the Industry in FY2023

The cloud computing landscape has evolved substantially over the years, and to date 2023 is no exception. With businesses increasingly relying on cloud-based services, we’ve identified some key trends that are shaping the industry. Here are the top cloud trends of FY2023, and what I see as the predominate trend of the coming FY

Main trend of the upcoming FY –  Workload Strategy

Workload Strategy will reign supreme with organisations streamlining their cloud approach to optimise efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Simply put, Workload Strategy is “Putting the workload in the right place”.  This innovative approach combines on-premises infrastructure, private cloud, data centre, and Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions. This enables organisations to leverage the unique benefits of each component, driving agility, scalability, and improved data management, while reducing overall expenditure.

Trends of FY23

1. Multi-Cloud Adoption

As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation, the need for flexibility and agility has driven a surge in multi-cloud adoption. This approach enables organisations to harness the strengths of various cloud providers to optimise performance, cost-efficiency, and data security.

2. Cloud-Native Security

As cloud adoption continues to expand, so does the need for robust cloud-native security measures. Organisations are now implementing security policies that are specifically designed for the cloud, such as zero-trust network access and secure access service edge (SASE).

3. Edge Computing

Edge computing has quickly gained traction as a means to reduce latency and enhance real-time data processing, particularly for Internet of Things (IoT) applications. By moving data processing closer to the source, edge computing ensures a faster response time and increased efficiency.

4. Serverless Architecture

This year, we’ve seen a growing interest in serverless architecture, which allows developers to build and run applications without the need to manage servers. This model not only simplifies the development process but also offers cost savings through a pay-as-you-go pricing structure.

5. AI and Machine Learning in Cloud Services

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into cloud services has allowed businesses to harness the power of advanced data analytics and automation. This has led to improved operational efficiency, cost reductions, and the ability to make data-driven decisions at scale.

Sector Spotlight – ACSC ISM June 2023 Update

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has released an updated Information Security Manual (ISM). The purpose of the ISM is to outline a cyber security framework that an organisation can apply, using their risk management framework, to protect their systems and data from cyber threats.  The summary of changes is available here

For something a bit easier to digest check out the Small Business Cloud Security Guides also produced by the ACSC

The Small Business Cloud Security Guides are an excellent resource for small to medium-sized Australian businesses that use Microsoft 365 in a service environment and have devices configured with Microsoft Intune. These guides provide example scenarios of how to implement a number of scenarios, designed to align with the ACSC’s Essential Eight strategy. These examples include

• Multi-factor authentication
• Restricting administrative privileges
• Regular Backups
• Patching Operating Systems and Applications
• Macro Restriction and Application Control
• User Application Hardening

News Bites – 10 Million scam calls and the UKs biggest anti-fraud operation

Millions of individuals receive phone calls from scammers, leaving them curious about the person behind these calls. Now, the mastermind has been revealed: instead of a distant call centre worker, it is a “bright young man” residing in a luxurious London flat who orchestrates numerous such calls. Read more here

And finally, as always, feedback is welcome. Which topic was of interest? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Or just a chat on tech? Please let me know, have a great day and enjoy!

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YourDC Cloud leverages iseek’s proven Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IAAS) platform to provide South Australian government and enterprise customers with greater IT infrastructure flexibility, scalability, and efficiency.

iseek’s extensive cloud services allow South Australian businesses to more effectively partner with YourDC as their needs develop, with customers now able to easily scale resources, such as virtual servers, storage, and networking, to meet increases in demand or unexpected spikes in traffic.

YourDC Cloud is tailored to meet individual customer workload, security, and compliance requirements, and is available in public, private and hybrid solutions. Private cloud access comprises exclusively allocated servers, storage and network for enhanced security and performance, while hybrid allows customers to integrate their on-premise and public cloud resources.

Hosted in South Australia’s only Tier 3 rated data centre facility, YourDC Cloud offers superior security with in-built encryption, secure boot, and secure network segmentation protecting sensitive data against cyber threats. It provides greater control over data location and storage, ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with a wide range of industry standards.

Acquired by iseek in September 2022, YourDC is an established supplier of critical infrastructure to government and blue-chip enterprise customers with its digital platform and services hosted in South Australia and supported by an Australian team. 

iseek CEO Jason Gomersall said, “YourDC’s enhanced product capability reflects the complementary growth opportunities that first attracted us to the business. The new offering combines our industry-leading   

cloud services with VMware’s virtualisation technology and YourDC’s local data centres to offer a best-in-class digital solution for the South Australian market.

“Digital infrastructure demand continues to grow, supported by increased data sovereignty, security and data protection requirements. Natural disasters across the country have also highlighted the very real need for organizations of all sizes to invest in back-up and recovery capability.”

YourDC CEO Scott Hicks said, “Our new cloud services provide significant benefits for our South Australian customers, including reduced latency, enhanced security and compliance, improved connectivity, and data sovereignty. We recognise our customers’ critical infrastructure requirements can change quickly, and offer the flexibility to cost-effectively scale up or down services with consumption pricing and the ability to transfer spend between solutions.” 

About iseek

With a track record extending over 20 years as a pioneering data centre and cloud services provider, iseek offers Enterprise and Government customers Australia-wide — whether in urban, rural or regional areas — the security, reliability and scale they could expect to find in major urban areas. Established in 1998, iseek has developed purpose-built data centres to become a leading digital infrastructure operator in the Australian market. Through its network of five data centres across Brisbane, Northern Queensland and Sydney, it provides data centre, cloud and connectivity services to a diverse range of Enterprise and Government customers.

About YourDC

Established in 2015, YourDC operates South Australia’s largest ecosystem of carriers, cloud, and managed services with two data centres strategically located to the north and south of Adelaide. It provides data centre co-location and connectivity services to blue-chip government, defence, and enterprise customers. YourDC offers the state’s only Tier 3 rated data centre facility with defence-grade security.

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We continue to expand our partnership with eHealth and provide bespoke solutions to support future innovation that will benefit all Queenslanders.

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