Author: Doug Newdick

The CSRB, Microsoft, China and You

What does the recent report on Microsoft security mean?

By Doug Newdick, on

In May-June 2023 a hacking group affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (known as Storm-0558) breached the email of several of Microsoft’s customers including the US State Department, the US Department of Commerce, several UK government organisations as well as customers in other countries. They also compromised the personal email accounts of key individuals involved in US relations with China. Read More

ISO 27001 Audits Made Easy…Sort Of

By Doug Newdick, on

ISO27001 Audit learnings

Our clients pay us to give them good security advice. And there is nothing like taking your own advice and seeing how well that goes. So, a couple of years ago we decided to eat our own dog-food and go for ISO 27001 certification. This is an internationally recognised way to demonstrate that you have good security. We’ve recommended it to a number of our customers, and we’ve helped several gain it. 

We had several things we wanted to achieve with this:

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On Scooters and Stale Audits

By Doug Newdick, on

Bear with me for a bit. When my son started intermediate school he wanted to scoot there. He had a flash scooter, so we got him a padlock and insisted he use it. Over the next few weeks we checked that this was happening. 6 months later we discovered that his padlock had seized up and he couldn’t use it. I reached for that old NZ standby – CRC – and got it working again.

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Axenic Celebrates Ramadan

By Doug Newdick, on

As a non-Muslim I knew nothing about Ramadan – I’d heard that it involved fasting but was ignorant of any details or of its significance. Realising that it was an important part of the lives of some of my colleagues, I decided to ask them about it. What surprised me – knowing little about Ramadan – was the joy that they clearly felt.

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