Plus ça change

When Chris Blunt and I started Axenic back in 2009, John Key was Prime Minister, Barack Obama had just become President of the USA and told Benjamin Netanyahu that he should freeze settlement construction in Gaza to enable movement towards a two-state solution, and a Royal Commission recommended that the 8 Auckland region local government bodies merge to form a “supercity”.

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The CSRB, Microsoft, China and You

What does the recent report on Microsoft security mean?

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


Archer Continuous Assurance September Release

In September, we released an updated version of the Axenic Archer Continuous Assurance service. This service is being regularly updated and enhanced to ensure a high-quality and seamless user experience. These will be a regular occurrence and we will update the main changes here, ensuring that the solution is not only a continuous assurance product, it is also continually improving and innovating. Read on to find out all the latest release details and functions of the Archer Continuous Assurance product.

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Axenic announces new product offering – substantial security improvement for Government agencies!

Axenic is proud to announce our new product offering which will substantially improve security at government agencies!

Government agencies have been telling us for years that they have struggled to implement the cable colour standards in the NZISM. Hampered by the fact that they don’t own the data centres, that it is hard to discover which cables are carrying which traffic, and that many of the data centres are overseas – agencies have given up. No longer!  Read More


Extreme makeover – ISO/IEC 27002:2022 Edition

ISO/IEC 27002 has been updated in 2022. So, what’s changed?

This international standard of generic information security controls is widely used across the information security community as a benchmark for implementing good security practices, and has been largely unchanged since 2013. However, earlier this year the updated standard has had more than a facelift – it’s had a full makeover. Fundamentally there are three main changes, which I’ll go into. Read More

The Russian invasion of the Ukraine raises a few cybersecurity questions

Cybersecurity Impacts of the Recent Invasion

Primarily the story about the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is one of great human tragedy. Nothing I write here is supposed to take away from the fact that the main story is about the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

Even at the other end of the world here in Aotearoa New Zealand, however, there will be impacts. Though they may just be echoes of the fury in Europe. It’s no secret that cyber attacks are part of Russian military strategy, nor that New Zealand organisations have been the victims of Russian cybercriminals. So what effects – if any – will the war in the Ukraine have on cyber security here?

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