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Optus Bids to Become Cyber Security Player With $8 Million Operations Centre

Optus has invested $8 million to create a new Advanced Security Operations Centre, which it hopes will position the telecommunications giant as a leading cyber security player.

The announcement from Optus follows the unveiling of an $8 million partnership between the telecommunications giant and La Trobe University last week, which will see the organisations develop a new cyber security degree and create a new high-tech sports park.

Managing director of Optus Business, John Paitaridis, told The Australian Financial Review that cyber security was now the largest area of investment for Optus Business.

“We know that cyber security and cyber crime is a major issue here in the Australian economy … costing about $1 billion a year,” he said.

“We’re embedding cyber security into everything we do, be it our networks, internet services or gateways … Our perspective is that as a major telco and network operator, we’re uniquely placed to support customers for distributed denial of service (DDoS) and other cyber advances.”

The new centre is one of nine global centres through Optus’ parent company Singtel and Trustwave, which Singtel acquired for $US810 million ($1.06 billion) in 2015.

Sought-after protection

Optus will provide a managed security services business as part of the centre, for which it has partnered with FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, Checkpoint and Akamai to bring customers what it sees as the best cyber security products under one package.

“Akamai again has great DDoS capabilities, Palo Alto has some incredible next-gen firewall capabilities, FireEye is one of the leading threat intelligence organisations. and CheckPoint has incredible mobile threat capability,” Mr Paitaridis said.

“Organisations are looking for a cyber partner who can protect their devices and various digital assets … employee and customer data.”

The Optus ASOC will share threat intelligence with the other global centres (located in the US, Canada, Poland, Singapore and the Philippines) in real time, with the information on critical threats then communicated to its customers.

On top of cyber defence technologies, Optus will also work with businesses and government organisations to develop incident response plans and work with boards to help educate them about their responsibilities.

Earlier this month popular websites such as Netflix, Reddit and Twitter ground to a halt after a DDoS attack hit Dyn, a US company that helps people connect to websites by translating URLs into numerical IP addresses.

Mr Paitaridis said this DDoS attack should serve as a “wake-up call” to local companies.

“There are many organisations working with us that have DDoS mitigation strategies in place … but there are many that do not,” he said.

Responding to the attack last week, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security, Dan Tehan, told The Australian Financial Review the country needed to be “constantly vigilant” as online threats evolved, and said information sharing was critical to this.

“Government, business and individuals are facing the same threats, and often the same adversaries, so sharing knowledge about threats and how to combat them will help strengthen everyone’s cyber security,” he said.

In the past year Optus has invested tens of millions of dollars in cyber security initiatives, such as the new centre.

As well as partnering with La Trobe University, the telco joined forces with Macquarie University, investing $10 million in the creation of the Optus Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub on campus to tackle the cyber skills shortage.

It has also partnered with Data61 on its Melbourne Cyber Security and Innovation Hub, which will create 140 jobs over three years, and launched the Optus Digital Thumbprint – an education program in schools focused on online cyber safety.

By: Yolanda Redrup

Posted on: http://www.afr.com/technology/optus-bids-to-become-cyber-security-player-with-8-million-operations-centre-20161019-gs5qt7#ixzz4PTmwx98S

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iPhone Users Warned Fake Retail Apps Are Surging Before Christmas

“It’s important that brands monitor how their name is being used,” he said.

Apple removed hundreds of fake apps on Thursday night after The New York Times inquired about the specific app vendors that created many of them. Other apps were removed after a New York Post article last week drew attention to some of the counterfeits.

‘We promptly investigate’

“We strive to offer customers the best experience possible, and we take their security very seriously,” said an Apple spokesman, Tom Neumayr. “We’ve set up ways for customers and developers to flag fraudulent or suspicious apps, which we promptly investigate to ensure the App Store is safe and secure. We’ve removed these offending apps and will continue to be vigilant about looking for apps that might put our users at risk.”

In September, Apple also embarked on a campaign to review all 2 million apps in the App Store and remove “apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines or are outdated”. The company says a significant number of apps have been removed and that the review is continuing.

Despite Apple’s efforts, new fake apps appear every day. In some cases, developers change the content of an app after it has been approved by Apple’s monitors. In other instances, the counterfeiters change their names and credentials, and resubmit similar apps after one round of fakes is discovered.

“It’s a game of Whack-a-Mole,” Mr Mason of Branding Brand said.

On Friday, for example, an entity calling itself Overstock Inc — an apparent attempt to confuse shoppers looking for the online retailer Overstock.com — was peddling Ugg boots and apparel through a fake app that was nearly identical to one banished by Apple on Thursday.

The same Chinese app developer, Cloaker Apps, created both fake Ugg apps on behalf of Chinese clients.

China by far the biggest source

Jack Lin, who identified himself as the head of Cloaker, said in a phone interview in China that his company provides the back-end technology for thousands of apps but does not investigate its clients.

“We hope that our clients are all official sellers,” he said. “If they are using these brands, we need some kind of authorisation, then we will provide services.”

Mr Lin said Cloaker charged about 20,000 renminbi — about $3820 — for an app written in English.

But like so many of the apps his company produces, Cloaker is not what it purports to be. Its website is filled with dubious claims, such as the location of its headquarters, which it says is at an address smack in the middle of Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California.

In the interview, Mr Lin at first said he had offices only in China and Japan. When asked about the California office, he then claimed to have “tens of employees” at the Facebook address.

China is by far the biggest source of fake apps, according to security experts.

Many of the fake retail apps have red flags signalling that they are not real, such as nonsensical menus written in butchered English, no reviews and no history of previous versions. In one fake New Balance app, for example, the tab for phone support did not list a phone number and said, “Our angents are available over the hone Monday-Firday.”

Data from Apptopia show that some of the fake apps have been downloaded thousands of times, although it is unclear how many people have actually used them. Reviews posted on some of the apps indicated that at least some people tried them and became frustrated.

“Would give zero stars if possible,” wrote one reviewer of the fake Dollar Tree app. “Constantly gets stuck in menus and closes what you were doing and makes you start over.”

Mr Mason says consumers want to shop online and they search for apps from their favourite stores and brands.

“The retailers who are most exposed are the ones with no app at all,” he said. Dollar Tree and Dillard’s, for example, have no official iPhone apps, which made it easier to lure their customers to the fake apps.

But the counterfeiters have also mimicked companies that do have an official presence in the App Store, hoping to capitalise on consumer confusion about which ones are real.

Shoe retailer Foot Locker, for example, has three iPhone apps. But that did not stop an entity calling itself Footlocke Sports Co, Ltd from offering 16 shoe and clothing apps in the App Store — including one purporting to be from a Foot Locker rival, Famous Footwear.

Similarly, the supermarket chain Kroger Company has 20 iPhone apps, reflecting the various retail chains in its empire. An entity calling itself The Kroger Inc had 19 apps, purporting to sell things as diverse as an $US80 ($104) pair of Asics sneakers and a $US688 bottle of Dior perfume.

Some of the fake apps have even used Apple’s new paid search ads to propel them to the top of the results screen when customers search for specific brands in the App Store.

Jon Clay, director of global threat communications for Trend Micro, an internet security firm, said Apple’s tight control over the iPhone had historically kept malicious apps out of its App Store. Fake apps appeared more often on Google’s Android platform or on third-party app stores, he said.

But that is beginning to change. Shortly after the Pokémon Go game was released in the US in July, for example, a spate of fake iPhone apps related to the game appeared, especially in countries where the game was not yet available.

“The criminals are going to take advantage of whatever is hot,” Mr Clay said.

Emily Feng contributed reporting from Beijing. The New York Times

By: Vindu Goel

Posted on: http://www.afr.com/technology/technology-companies/apple/iphone-users-warned-fake-retail-apps-are-surging-before-christmas-20161107-gsk4qp

 

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ASX and ASIC Launch Big Company Cyber Health Checks for Top 100 Firms

The ASX and the corporate regulator have launched a new initiative to improve the cyber security defences of Australia’s biggest companies, urging the exchange’s top 100 firms to have a Cyber Health Check.

The program forms part of the federal government’s cyber security strategy that was launched earlier this year and it has been developed alongside professional services firms KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PwC and CERT Australia and has been based on a similar initiative in the UK with the FTSE 350.

ASX group executive Amanda Harkness said the sharing of best practice approaches was critical to businesses.

“Increased awareness and engagement by directors of listed companies are important steps in building the cyber resilience of Australian businesses,” she said.

“The better informed boards become, the more effectively they can assess their cyber security risks and opportunities, identifying areas where improvement is required.”

The initiative comes as the government has introduced a bill to bring in the long-awaited mandatory data breach notification rules, which will mean companies that have been breached or have lost data will need to report the incident as well as notify customers that have been directly impacted.

If a company fails to do this, they will face fines of up to $1.8 million for organisations and $360,000 for individuals, but the laws only apply to companies turning over $3 million or more.

Ms Harkness said participation in the program would assure shareholders of the top 100 companies that cyber security was a board priority.

“We encourage Australia’s largest listed companies to play their part,” she said.

Participants in the health check program will respond to a series of multiple choice questions such as what risk factors apply to their company, if they have a clear understanding of their company’s data assets and key information, and if they receive high level intelligence from the chief information officer or head of security.

They will also be asked if the company engages external parties to perform penetration testing, if they use public cloud servers and how significant a risk cyber security is in their opinion.

Cyber security breaches have been estimated to cost local businesses $1 billion a year

Late last month the Australian Red Cross Blood Service was forced to apologise after the details of 550,000 blood donors was leaked online.

In August it was also revealed that Austrade and the Defence Department’s research division, the Defence Science Technology Group, had been attacked numerous times in the past five years by cyber criminals based in China.

By: Yolanda Redrup

Posted on: http://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/asx-and-asic-launch-big-company–cyber-health-checks-for-top-100-firms-20161109-gsl77l#ixzz4PTjMSjL4

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Facebook Challenges LinkedIn With New Job Openings Feature

New feature in testing allows business page admins to post job openings and accept applications.

While helping you keep in touch with friends from your past, Facebook might also help you find a job in the future.

The online social network confirmed Monday it is testing a feature that will allow administrators of business pages to promote job openings on their pages and receive applications from job candidates. TechCrunch, which first spotted the new feature, noted that the feature could help Facebook “muscle in” on LinkedIn, which derives much of its revenue from companies paying to search for new recruits.

“Based on behavior we’ve seen on Facebook, where many small businesses post about their job openings on their Page, we’re running a test for Page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.

Facebook is no stranger to new endeavors in sectors already dominated by one company. In October 2015, the social network challenged Craigslist with the launch of Marketplace, a new section of its mobile app that lets people list their furniture, cars and clothes for sale to any Facebook users in their area. Last week, Facebook launched Gameroom, a PC gaming platform that takes aim at Steam.

By: Steven Musil

Posted on: https://www.cnet.com/au/news/facebook-challenges-linkedin-with-new-job-openings-feature

 

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Google Puts Repeatedly Dangerous Websites on Notice

Web giant tries to fill the protection gap created when malicious sites clean up their act just long enough to ditch the Safe Browsing warning.

Google has added a new classification to its Safe Browsing initiative to better protect users from malicious websites trying to game the system.

Google’s Safe Browsing warns users when they are about to visit a website known to violate the web giant’s policies on malware, unwanted software, phishing or social engineering. The warning appears until Google verifies that the site in question no longer poses a threat to users. But some sites are only cleaning up their act just long enough to shake the warning, and then returning to their harmful behavior.

That gap in user protection led Google to create a new label to warn users of sites that engage in this pattern.

“Starting today, Safe Browsing will begin to classify these types of sites as “Repeat Offenders,” Google explained in a company blog post Tuesday. “Please note that websites that are hacked will not be classified as Repeat Offenders; only sites that purposefully post harmful content will be subject to the policy.”

Once classified as a “repeat offender,” sites will not be allowed to request a review for 30 days. During that time, users will continue to see messages warning them of the risk involved in visiting the site.

Google has added a new classification to its Safe Browsing initiative to better protect users from malicious websites trying to game the system.

Google’s Safe Browsing warns users when they are about to visit a website known to violate the web giant’s policies on malware, unwanted software, phishing or social engineering. The warning appears until Google verifies that the site in question no longer poses a threat to users. But some sites are only cleaning up their act just long enough to shake the warning, and then returning to their harmful behavior.

That gap in user protection led Google to create a new label to warn users of sites that engage in this pattern.

“Starting today, Safe Browsing will begin to classify these types of sites as “Repeat Offenders,” Google explained in a company blog post Tuesday. “Please note that websites that are hacked will not be classified as Repeat Offenders; only sites that purposefully post harmful content will be subject to the policy.”

Once classified as a “repeat offender,” sites will not be allowed to request a review for 30 days. During that time, users will continue to see messages warning them of the risk involved in visiting the site.

By: Steven Musil

Posted on: https://www.cnet.com/au/news/google-puts-repeatedly-dangerous-websites-on-notice

 

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The Genius Phone is Coming

Google Pixel: stand aside smartphone, the genius phone is coming

Smartphone vendors have a tough job. They need to convince consumers that theirs is the best, bar none. Better than last year’s model. Better than the competition. And not just incrementally better. Quantum leap better. Otherwise, who would want to upgrade?

The narrative around the new Pixel phones is that they are so good and so different from what came before that Google even had to find a new brand name for them. So it’s farewell to the Nexus — which was last year’s most awesome Google smartphone — and hello to Pixel, Google’s newest bestie.

As Google vice president Jason Bremner put it: “Nexus was the best of Android [the Google operating system]; Pixel is the best of Google.” While most consumers would probably not appreciate that subtle differentiation, the intent is clearly to make the Pixels much more than a “pure Android” phone.

The Pixel phones are an entirely new created-from-scratch, flagship smartphone that combines the high-class hardware with Google’s software smarts in an integrated way that, apparently, has not been done before.

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With Pixel phones, Google says ‘inflection point’ reached in computing

Reviewing a new phone at a launch event is a bit like test driving a car in a showroom. You can’t do much more than kick the tires and check the comfyness of the seats. And let’s face it, there is a sameness now to all top-of-the-range smartphones; they all come in the “candy bar” shape, all come clad in glass and aluminum, with super-dooper high resolution screens, awesome multi mega pixel cameras and most also have a headphone jack.

The Pixel and the phablet-sized Pixel XL both conformto that familiar spec described above. Save for the fingerprint sensor, which sits on the back the device. Unlike the iPhone, there is no camera bump, the lens sit flush to the surface. Also unlike the iPhone 7 and newer Samsungs Galaxys, Pixels are not promoted as being water or splash resistant.

But here are six features, in no particular order, which I think deserve special mention:

1. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has called it. The mobile first era is over and it’s being replaced by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) first era. And we thought they were called smartphones! Well apparently, you ain’t seen nothing yet. But the Pixel phones are the forerunners of the next generation of really smart phones where stuff like AI, machine learning, voice and image recognition and neural networks are baked into the operating system.

Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL could step in to fill the gap left by the Note7.

Google Assistant is to the Pixel as Siri is the iPhone, only she’s been sucking up humanity’s collective wisdom for a lot longer than Siri has. Google Assistant is part bot, part concierge, part life coach. It’s how Pichai says the company will “build a personal Google for each and every user”. Creepy, maybe; useful, for sure.

2. It’s hard enough switching from Android to Android let alone iPhone to Android. To salve the the itch to switch, the Pixel phones come with software and an adapter you can use to tether phones together so that everything comes across rapidly and painlessly.

3. It is clear that the Pixel cameras are a cut above the competition. Tests by DxOMark, a respected independent source of camera and lens image quality measurements and ratings, has given the Pixel cameras a score of 89, placing it above the competition. Google also uses a lot of clever software to trick up the photos so that they look like they were shot with a proper single lens reflex camera.

4. The Pixels are the first to support Google’s Daydream virtual reality (VR) platform. I don’t think this can be underestimated as a selling point. Yes, it’s early days, but turning your phone into a VR projector — once coupled with the $119 Daydream View goggles — will bring new uses to these phones that you never knew existed. Mums and dads, lock away your new Pixel phones because someone is going to have an irresistible urge to strap them to their face for extended periods.

5. Google has one-upped Apple’s Genius Bar concept with built-in 24/7 support. When they say built-in, they mean exactly that. It’s built into the phone so that as long as you can switch on the phone, which admittedly is sometimes the problem, you can dial up for voice or chat support. There’s even a feature to screen shot and share the problem you’re seeing.

6. Hoarders rejoice! Pixel owners (should we be calling them Pixies?) will get unlimited storage in the cloud for their photos and videos at the original resolution. Google Photos already provides video and photo cloud storage, but larger files are crunched down in size. Coupled with dynamic caching, which parks stuff you haven’t seen for a while in the cloud, Pixel phones will never run out of photo and video storage space.

Prices: The 5-inch Pixel will range in price from $1079 for the 32GB version to $1229 for the 128G model. The Pixel XL 5.5-inch model will start at $1269 for the 32GB version and $1419 for the128GB model. They will both run on the Android 7.1 version of Google’s mobile operating system.

The author attended the launch in San Francisco as a guest of Google.

By: Stephen Hutcheon

Posted on: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/mobiles/google-pixel-stand-aside-smartphone-the-genius-phone-is-coming-20161005-grv9jt.html

 

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Risky online behaviour due to security fatigue: study

Security fatigue is causing computer users to indulge in risky behaviour, both in computing and their personal lives, a study by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology claims.

The study came to this conclusion after an analysing data from a qualitative study on computer users’ perception and their beliefs about cybersecurity and online privacy. (The study can be downloaded here after payment.)

Those interviewed ranged in age from 20s to 60s, and were from urban, suburban and rural areas. They were employed in a variety of jobs.

The study defined security fatigue as a weariness or a reluctance to deal with issues of computer security.

The study, published in the IEEE’s IT Professional, looked at computer use in the workplace and home. There was a specific focus on online activity, including shopping and banking, computer security, security terminology, and security icons and tools.

Cognitive psychologist Brian Stanton, a co-author of the study, said: “The finding that the general public is suffering from security fatigue is important because it has implications in the workplace and in people’s everyday life.

“It is critical because so many people bank online, and since health care and other valuable information is being moved to the internet.”

“If people can’t use security, they are not going to, and then we and our nation won’t be secure.”

The study found that most average computer users felt overwhelmed and bombarded, and got tired of being on constant alert, adopting safe behavior, and trying to understand the nuances of online security issues.

It said that when users were asked to make more computer security decisions than they are able to manage, they experienced decision fatigue, which leads to security fatigue.

The study concluded that this weariness could lead to feelings of resignation and loss of control. This, in turn, could lead to avoiding decisions, choosing the easiest option among alternatives, making decisions influenced by immediate motivations, behaving impulsively, and failing to follow security rules.

The study said there were three ways to ease security fatigue and help users maintain secure online habits and behavior. They are:

  • Limit the number of security decisions users need to make;
  • Make it simple for users to choose the right security action; and
  • Design for consistent decision-making whenever possible.

By: Sam Varghese

Posted on: http://www.itwire.com/home-it/75169-risky-online-behaviour-due-to-security-fatigue-study.html

 

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Galaxy Note7 – Samsung’s latest problematic product

Samsung killed the Galaxy Note7 this week after the devices continued to burst into flames. But the tech behemoth has not extinguished scrutiny over its safety record.

The South Korean manufacturer, which makes an array of consumer electronics, including kitchen appliances and television sets, is in the middle of juggling other safety problems. Those include a recall in Australia for more than 144,000 Samsung washing machines that were prone to causing fires, and a potential recall of defective laundry units in the United States.

Over the years, Samsung has faced other safety situations that have resulted in regulators taking action. The larger incidents include a 2003 recall of 184,000 microwave ovens in the United States, and 210,000 refrigerators in South Korea in 2009. There have been other smaller recalls, including one in 2009 of about 43,000 microwave ovens in the United States because of a shock hazard and 20,000 washing machines in 2007 because of a fire risk.

Those episodes have been compounded by consumer frustration. People who have faced safety hazards with Samsung kitchen and home appliances said they frequently had to jump through hoops to get replacement products or refunds. To them, Samsung’s bungled handling of the Galaxy Note recall this week was not surprising.

Ed O’Rourke, a resident of Boston, said that over the span of four years, Samsung replaced his malfunctioning induction range three times before the fourth one’s glass cooktop exploded in 2013. After that, Samsung declined to issue a refund until 2015, after his wife fought the company in small-claims court and won. The couple now uses an Electrolux range.

The panoply of other Samsung product recalls shows that the Galaxy Note7 fiasco was not an isolated case, though it was the company’s largest by far, with more than 2.5 million devices. Combined with Samsung’s often bureaucratic process for rectifying these consumer issues, it raises questions about whether the company prioritised profit over customer safety.

“I thought, why doesn’t this happen to Apple or GE? And is Samsung playing it a little too cute in pushing things to limits that other companies aren’t pushing in terms of engineering-safety ratio?” O’Rourke said.

Product recalls are common among consumer electronics companies, so given the large portfolio of Samsung products and the size of the company, some problems to its lineup are to be expected.
Apple, Samsung’s chief rival, has had a number of smaller recalls for products, including one for thousands of Beats speakers last year after receiving complaints of overheating, and a recall for some iPod Nanos in 2011 because of issues related to overheating.

A Samsung spokeswoman pointed to an earlier statement about its washing machines in Australia, in which the company said thousands of refunds and replacements had been made and that customer safety was its top priority.

Yet the scale and prominence of the Galaxy Note 7 problem renews the spotlight on Samsung’s safety record in other product areas, even as the company grapples with the smartphone recall. On Wednesday, Samsung revised its third-quarter profit estimates to absorb the equivelent of $2.6 billion in losses. The company said it earned 5.2 trillion won ($6.1 billion) in the third quarter, 33.3 per cent less than the 7.8 trillion won profit it had estimated last week. It said it had also cut its sales estimate for the quarter by 2 trillion won, to 47 trillion won.

The smartphone recall is most likely unrelated to other Samsung product recalls that are now unfolding, like the one for the washing machines. That is because consumer electronics like TVs and kitchen appliances are made by a different Samsung division than the mobility group that is responsible for the smartphones.

In Australia, Samsung is in the process of a recall it started three years ago for top-loading washing machines that were prone to catching fire as a result of an internal electrical defect. Samsung said that as of last month, it had resolved the problem in 81 per cent of the affected washers.

Yet many owners of the troubled Samsung washing machines contend their problems are far from resolved. For the recall in, Samsung repaired the machines by fitting plastic bags over some connectors. A Facebook group with more than 4000 owners of the recalled machines crowdfunded money to hire forensic experts to analyse the fix. The forensic reports concluded that the plastic bag was ineffective because it did not prevent moisture penetration of the connectors.

“It’s quite extraordinary that consumers who are scared for their lives had to get these scientific reports done,” said Tarn Allen, an owner of a recalled Samsung washing machine who is an administrator for the Facebook group. Allen, who lives in Sydney, said the South Korean manufacturer had refused to issue refunds to many members of the Facebook group until an Australian government agency issued a statement saying it was looking into the matter.

Samsung may also be preparing to recall top-loading washing machines in the United States. Some models of the top-loading washers made between 2011 and this year are at risk of causing property damage or personal injury when the machines wash water-resistant clothing and bulky items including bedding, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“CPSC is advising consumers to only use the delicate cycle” with those items, the agency said late last month. “The lower spin speed in the delicate cycle lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged.”

The affected units may experience abnormal vibrations, Samsung said in a statement. The commission and Samsung said they were working toward a fix.

By: Brian X. Chen and Choe Sang

Posted on: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/mobiles/galaxy-note7-latest-in-samsungs-history-of-problematic-products-20161013-gs23on.html

 

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Are you a Socially-Engaged Company?

Cindy Hook and Alex Malley lead new generation of ‘social executives’

Social media savvy chief executives are becoming an increasingly common breed, as leaders in the financial services sector turn to avenues like Twitter and LinkedIn to attract a new generation of customers.

According to a new report by social media management company Hootsuite and LinkedIn, socially-engaged companies are 40 per cent more likely to appear competitive and 58 per cent more likely to attract talent.

Hootsuite financial services global industry principle Amy McIlwain said local chief executives such as Deloitte Australia head Cindy Hook and CPA Australia chief Alex Malley are leading the way when it comes to communicating on the web.

“One of the best practices is to be you. If you wouldn’t say it offline, don’t say it online,” Ms McIlwain said.

“Be authentic, be transparent and don’t be something you’re not. People look for humanising features, do don’t be afraid to share your hobbies. People do business with people they like and trust.”

As part of the study the organisations analysed more than 340,000 social media posts from the Australian financial services industry throughout May to September.

It found that at social engaged companies where the executives use social media, the employees are 57 per cent more likely to leverage these channels to drive sales.

The study also concluded that so-called ‘social executives’ in the industry, those who are regularly communicating on social media, received 4.7 times more profile visits, 10.8 time mores views on long form posts and 14 times higher engagement on shared content.

Ms McIlwain said banking and finances executives in Australia were well-placed to leverage social media in their organisations, given the amount of technological disruption already underway in the industry.

“[They] need to proactively lead from the front, engaging and empowering employees and sales teams,” she said.

“We encourage executives to get on social and start by listening. Follow the influencers and understand the conversations taking place and then when they’re comfortable to join and engage in those conversations.”

Best practice

CPA Australia chief executive Alex Malley was pinpointed in the report as an example of an executive with a strong social media presence.

Mr Malley told The Australian Financial Review when he first started as CEO at CPA Australia social media was foreign to him, but it has become a critical part of his strategy.

“These days you have to accept that the future of the business rests in the next generation, and they use multiple ways to communicate,” he said.

“I’m a former teacher, so I know that people often relate to the person, and not always to the business or the brand and the profession is known to be quite impersonal at times,” he said.

Mr Malley does not just talk about accounting industry issues on social media, instead he’s not afraid to weigh in on the big business stories of the day, write thought-leadership posts and talk about his personal interests. He also takes questions from young professionals and always responds via his website The Naked CEO (also the title of his book).

The media savvy CEO has earned the title of “Australia’s most accomplished self-promoter” by Rear Window columnist Joe Aston, but Mr Malley is unphased.

“The Naked CEO just had its 5 millionth visitor, and then we’ve got Twitter and LinkedIn and we have new content up every day. If there’s an issue that’s not related to accounting, like Dick Smith, I’ll still talk about it,” he said.

“It’s dramatically changed our culture. We now have a sense that we can try things. We aim to disrupt, so we look at disruptive ways of talking about a topic… It’s your best piece of market research, I can tell in 24 hours if something is worth putting together as a program.”

Ms McIlwain said where leaders go wrong online, is when they fail to be authentic. US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has learnt this lesson the hard way throughout the election campaign, struggling to attract young voters despite asking millennials on Twitter to “tell her in three emojis or less” what they feel about student loan debt.

Digital Perception Index

The Hootsuite and LinkedIn study also developed a new rating tool called the Digital Perception Index, which determines a company or sector’s perception online.

Australian investment and wealth management institutions were found to still be struggling to rebuild trust after the global financial crisis, scoring the lowest ranking of +3.97 per cent on the index, while superannuation firms led the financial services sector with a +12.55 per cent ranking, compared to the industry average of +5.94 per cent.

By: Yolanda Redrup

Posted on: http://www.afr.com/technology/cindy-hook-and-alex-malley-lead-new-generation-of-social-executives-20161010-grzeca

 

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