Campus Review Vol 29. Issue 11 | November 2019 | Seite 8

news
campusreview.com.au
‘It was a diamond heist’
ANU details facets of data breach.
F
our months after the Australian National University revealed
that it had been the target of a cyber hack, the institution has
released a report detailing its subsequent investigation.
ANU vice-chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt said the “state of the
art hack” was carried out by “an actor at the very top of their game”.
“This wasn’t a smash and grab,” he said. “It was a diamond heist.”
The investigation did not uncover which records were taken or
the actor’s intentions, but the ANU team insisted that the stolen data
had not been further misused.
The report confirmed that the actor sent a spear-phishing
email on 9 November 2018 to the mailbox of a senior member of
staff. While this email was only previewed, the malicious code it
contained did not require the recipient to click on a link or open
an attachment.
Meat study
panned
Harvard school makes meal out
of red meat research paper.
A
new study that suggests adults
should continue their current red
meat consumption has been met
with condemnation, including from one
of its authors.
A team of international researchers,
led by Bradley Johnston, an associate
professor of community health at
Dalhousie University in Canada, said their
6
“It is highly likely that the credentials taken from this account
were used to gain access to other systems,” the report read. “The
actor also gained access to the senior staff member’s calendar –
information which was used to conduct additional spear-phishing
attacks later in the actor’s campaign.”
The resulting attacks targeted the university’s enterprise systems
domain, which houses its human resources, financial management,
student administration and enterprise e-forms systems.
That information, among other details, included names,
addresses, dates of birth, tax file numbers and bank account details.
But the university confirmed that information like medical records,
counselling records, academic misconduct and financial hardship
were not harvested.
Schmidt said: “It was an extremely sophisticated operation, most
likely carried out by a team of between five to 15 people working
around the clock. It’s likely they spent months planning this. They
were organised and everyone knew their role. They evolved. They
used custom-built malware and zero-day hacks to exploit unknown
vulnerabilities in our system. They dismantled their operations as
they went to cover their tracks. They brought their A team.”
Schmidt said the university was investing in information security
technology, processes, culture and leadership.
He also had a word of warning for other organisation harbouring
private information.
“We are certainly not alone, and many organisations will already
have been hacked, perhaps without their knowledge.”
By making the report public, Schmidt said he hoped to encourage
more disclosure of these attacks. ■
recommendation to continue rather than
reduce the consumption of red meat is
based on “a very small and often trivial
absolute risk reduction based on a realistic
decrease of three servings of red or
processed meat per week”.
“Our weak recommendation that people
continue their current meat consumption
highlights both the uncertainty associated
with possible harmful effects and the very
small magnitude of effect, even if the best
estimates represent true causation, which
we believe to be implausible,” they wrote.
But experts from the Harvard T.H.
Chan School of Public Health said the
authors’ guidelines contradict the evidence
generated from their own meta-analyses.
“Among the five published systematic
reviews, three meta-analyses basically
confirmed previous findings on red meat
and negative health effects,” the Harvard
team said via a statement.
The experts said this was a prime example
where one must look beyond the headlines.
“The publication of these studies and the
meat guidelines in a major medical journal
is unfortunate, because following the new
guidelines may potentially harm individuals’
health, public health and planetary health.
“It may also harm the credibility of
nutrition science and erode public trust in
scientific research.”
Dr John Sievenpiper – a co-author on
one of the meta-analyses and professor
in the Department of Nutritional Sciences
at the University of Toronto – also took
aim at the panel’s conclusions and
recommendations.
Sievenpiper, as quoted by the Harvard
school, said: “Unfortunately, the leadership
of the paper chose to play up the low
certainty of evidence by GRADE as
opposed to the protective associations that
directly support current recommendations
to lower meat intake…
“Very few nutritional exposures are
able to show associated benefits on the
big three of all-cause, cardiovascular and
cancer mortality, as well as type 2 diabetes.
“The signals would be even stronger
if one considered substitution analyses
with plant protein sources or investigated
dose-response gradients which are used
to upgrade data by GRADE, both of which
I had requested.
“Unfortunately, I never saw the galley
proofs to ensure that these changes had
been made.” ■