Analyzing Cyber Resilience in Commonwealth Bank: Strategic Report

This report examines cyber resilience within the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, particularly in light of a significant data breach affecting millions of customer accounts. It emphasizes the importance of cyber resilience in the face of increasing cyber threats and suggests measures for Australian financial institutions to enhance their security posture. The report covers various facets of cyber resilience, including its importance for individual privacy, organizational security, online business expansion, financial transaction security, and fraud reduction. It also reviews the security breach experienced by the Commonwealth Bank and provides recommendations for improvement, including government initiatives, advocating for cyber security awareness, strengthening e-banking, fostering leadership and partnerships, and promoting educational skills development. Ultimately, the report argues for a proactive and strategic approach to cyber resilience to safeguard businesses and customers in the digital age.

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Executive summary
Cyber resilience is the perfect mechanism to deal with the threat of cyber data breaching. In 2016
the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was alleged with a potential cyber security breaching in
approximately 20 million customer accounts which was one of the historical cyber attacks in
Australian financial industry. In response to this, the report puts intense stress on the importance
of the cyber resilience and suggests the Australian financial institutions to incorporate some
cyber resilience measures for the safety of their business and customers. In addition to this, the
report also points out some recommendations and planning to install cyber resilience program. In
a conclusion, it can be argued that the report rightly highlights an accurate plan to introduce
cyber resilience measures.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Facets of cyber resilience.............................................................................................................3
Importance of cyber resilience.....................................................................................................4
Individual purpose...................................................................................................................4
Organisational context.............................................................................................................5
Online business expansion.......................................................................................................5
Financial transaction................................................................................................................6
Reducing fraudulent activities.................................................................................................6
Security breach in Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................6
Recommendation and planning...................................................................................................7
Government initiatives.............................................................................................................7
Advocating cyber security.......................................................................................................8
Strengthening E-banking.........................................................................................................9
Leadership and partnership......................................................................................................9
Educational skills and development......................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reference.......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The technological advancement leads to extensive use of the internet in every aspects of
life. It can also be seen in the business sectors especially in the financial and banking industry.
However, technology has an adverse impact too. Data breach or hacking has become a tendency
to the global terrorist syndicates nowadays. For an example, the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia was come into the limelight in 2016 after the hitting by a data breach incident in 20
million customers (Hutchens 2018). In this context, the purpose of this report is to figure out the
best possible way to stop data breach. Cyber resilience is the best way to deal with this ever
emerging threat. The report also puts emphasis on the significance of cyber resilience in the
digitisation of the financial sector in Australia. In addition to this, the discussion further points
out a strategic plan in order to deal with the cyber threats.
Discussion
Facets of cyber resilience
The term Cyber resilience is associated with the concept of cyber security and the impact
on the organisations. It can be argued that there are plenty of definition regarding cyber
resilience but all the interpretation argued the same. Henceforth, in general it can be argued that
the Cyber resilience is a wider approach in the computing and digitisation technology that
encapsulates the framework of cyber security and keen to resolve the issues that the business
organisations are facing in the context of cyber security (Choudhury et al. 2015). In other words,
it can be stated that the role of Cyber security is to secure the business organisation form any
kind of cyber threat by rapid recover and learning process. In this regard, it is important to

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understand the cyber resilience strategy and its purpose. The cyber resilience strategy is a
planning that is dedicated to deal with the cyber security and threats that an organisation or an
individual faces and in course of this the cyber resilience strategy will provide a plan to mitigate
the problem. According to Gisladottir et al. (2017) cyber resilience is associated with performing
within an organisation with the perception to prevent from any kind of security attack.
In response to the cyber-attack most of the public and private organisations are putting
more emphasis on the protection of their sensitive and confidential information that can be lost
unethically. In this regard, it requires a resilience to protect the information. Resilience can be
defined as an ability which ensure the continuation of the organisational function of a company
(Björck et al. 2015). There the function of the cyber resilience is to protect the digitised
information of the company or the organisation in order to create a better organisational
mechanism that will be beneficial to continue the business activities of the company. As a matter
of fact, most of the business companies ventilate more concern towards maximisation of the
employees and the question of maximisation of target markets (Moyer et al. 2016). There is no
scope for the companies to keep an eye on such apparently not profitable portions. However, the
cyber resilience is also played the role of a beneficial factor and the organisations must
implement it.
Importance of cyber resilience
Individual purpose
It is important for an employee or any higher authority of the organisation to ensure
security and privacy of some documents. For the employees it can be identified as the personal
documents or the personal details that the organisations are not entitled to share without the

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consent of the employee. In case of the employees with higher designation the personal details
are coupled with the sensitive company details that has to be secured (Bell 2017). In case of any
breach regarding these information, the company will face fatal blow to its business activities.
Organisational context
Due to the advent of the technology and rapid growth in the digitisation mechanism it
becomes pertinent for the organisations to do business in an online platform. Most of the big
companies are intended to retain their organisational activities in online rather than maintaining
offline services. As a result of that all the workplace activities become transparent and well
informed to the project related employees (Gisladottir et al. 2017). Moreover, for the internal
communication, the organisations also fosters a better communication tool by introducing online
platforms in the form of Gmail and Yahoo. Through this digital platforms the company
authorities share their valuable documents and information. In case of any breach in this
communication channel will lead to a catastrophe for the organisation.
Online business expansion
The online business is considered to be another important aspect that the companies put
their focus upon. In fact, the online business strategy is considered to be an effective tool to
create a better market capitalisation for the organisations. In this regards, it can be argued that the
role of the digital intervention is effectively significant that providing strategic advantages to the
companies while doing business in the competitive market (Björck et al. 2015). In this regard,
the cyber-attack in the online customer portal of any organisation will be considered to be a huge
loss for the company both in terms of profit and the image of the brand.

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Financial transaction
With the advent of the robust practice of digitisation, people are now more like to use
plastic money in compare to cash. Plastic money is referred as the digital currency that can be
used in digital transaction (Gallagher, McMahon and Morrow 2014). In response to this there are
a number of digital transaction interface popularised all around the globe. Such as Bitcoin
technology is very familiar with this digital transaction where the mechanism is able to keep the
information of the sender and receiver in shadow (Björck et al. 2015). However, not all the
companies have the ability to use such framework. Especially in the banking and financial
sectors the companies have to track the transaction history of their customers. Therefore, in this
case it is important for the companies to implement a cyber-resilience technology.
Reducing fraudulent activities
The more the technology is growing the more it becomes a part of the cybercrimes. As a
matter of fact, the cyber-crimes and cyber terrorism has become a great threat to the global
nexus. In the financial and banking sector, the cyber terrorists hack the system and transact
money that are used in the terrorist activities around the world (Moyer et al. 2016). Therefore, it
is important for the organisations to implement such measures that is able to protect the
organisation from further cyber-attack.
Security breach in Commonwealth Bank
In this context, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia faced a major scandal with
fraudulent due to data breach in the bank. It was reported that since 2000 to 2016 there was a
huge data breach in the Commonwealth Bank where 19.8 million customer accounts were tapped
(Collett 2018). Taping bank accounts is considered to be a regular practice for the commercial
banks with the purpose to store bulk of information for further physical backups. However, in

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case of the Commonwealth Bank, there was a data breach that the company did not know when it
was happened. The data were comprised of the customer address, their names, account numbers
and the transaction details. All those information are very vital for a financial company to keep
in dark to maintain an ethical consideration that is the fundamental condition. This was a pure
example of data breach happened in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Reilly 2018). As a
matter of fact, the organisation had a security measure which was expired and the authority did
not try to presubscribe it. As a matter of fact, the bank authorities corroborated the fact that the
data did not include any security code or password that could prevent the data from further
catastrophe. With the rapid increase in the criminal activities in Australia, this data breach was
not a good news for the government as well (Hutchens 2018). Therefore, the CBA authorities
were under the investigation of APRA, Australia’s apex financial regulator.
Recommendation and planning
Government initiatives
It is highly important for the companies to put pressure on the government to procure
more effective rules and regulations in order to prevent the cyber security. With the advent of the
digitisation and the growing trend in the technological advancement, Cyber resilience has
become an important aspects for the government intervention (Shackelford et al. 2015). Based
on this the Australian government is also put focus on this issue by introducing new policy
regarding the cyber security. In this regard, it can be stated that the government imposes all the
responsibility on the Department of Defence and the legislative bodies (australia.gov.au 2018).
As per the Cyber Security Policy of 2016 it can be argued that the government attempts to
establish more transparency in the framework in order to make a strong partnership with the
business organisations on Cyber resilience (accc.gov.au 2018). In this context, the policy

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includes the sub-cabinet ministry and the secretariat of the Prime Minister. Moreover, the
Foreign affairs and Trade is charged with the leadership to create a top level cyber security
board. In this regard, the establishment of the new joint cyber security centre in Brisbane in 2017
is highly significant (australia.gov.au 2018). The role of this department is to play as a conduit
for cyber threat information among the federal and state level government and this policy is
related to the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
Advocating cyber security
Cyber security has become a threat for the organisations to do their business effectively.
Therefore, it requires a preventive approach from the organisations’ ends to meet the government
regulations and make it a successful attempt for not only the government but also for their
healthy business environment. In response to this, the organisations must have a strategy to
promote the Cyber resilience program. Sharing the vital information related to the negative
impact of the cyber breach is considered to be an important aspect for the private organisations
(Yano et al. 2015). In response to mitigate the threat related to the cyber-crimes and cyber
terrorism it is important for the organisations to foster a cultural awareness in every corner of
Australia so that other organisations and public are also get the light of this malice. There are
some strategic steps that the financial institutions can develop for the awareness rising (North
and Pascoe 2016). Sharing values regarding the role of the cyber threat is a key element in this
regard. Moreover, the public campaigns and programs are also played a key role in this process
by incorporating both the managers of different financial institutions and common people in the
process of Cyber resilience awareness (Graubart and Bodeau 2017).

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Strengthening E-banking
The entire electronic fund transfer and transaction is monitored by the Australian
Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC). This department enacts strict regulations and
monitoring process on the banks and other financial institutions so that any issues related to the
e-banking protocol will get into notice (Bouveret 2018). In this regard, the banking sector of
Australia also shares its value and deep concern regarding the safety and security of the
customers. As far as the basic code of the Australian banking industry, the quality service to the
customers is considered to be the most important aspect. Furthermore, one of the core functions
of the Australian Bankers’ Association (ABA) is to ensure a standard protocol and in response to
that the organisation puts focus on drafting Uniform Consumer Credit Code and the Electronic
Funds Transfer Code (Noel, Bodeau and McQuaid 2017). The purpose of this new development
in the Australian financial industry is to create a better business environment for the customers
and get their reliability on the Australian banks. In course of these measures, it will be beneficial
for the Australian banking and finance institutions to facilitate more transparent and secured
network for the customers to access e-banking facilities.
Leadership and partnership
Leadership and partnership are considered to be one of the major aspects on which the
Australian banking and financial sector is working on. Leaders can incorporate necessary steps
and play a significant role in convincing the employees to take concern regarding the
implementation of cyber resilience. After the biggest fraud case in the Australian Banking sector
history in terms of the fraudulent activities of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the banking
sector intends to incorporate more cyber resilient measures for its future sustainability (Ng and
Kwok, 2017). Involving the stakeholders in the banking operations and maintaining transparency

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in the business is considered to be the vital factor for the benefits of both the customers and the
companies. As a matter of fact, the government will also get benefitted by this new framework.
Educational skills and development
In addition to this, it can be argued that implementing the cyber resilient framework is not
only the responsibility of the bank authority and the customers, in fact, the employees have a
significant role in it. The employees do direct interactions with the customers on behalf of the
company and try to resolve the customer issues. However, cyber resilience can be a new idea to
them and they do not have adequate knowledge about the importance and issues regarding cyber
resilient (Lagazio, Sherif and Cushman 2014). Therefore, it needs proper education and training
program for the employees to get them acknowledges the importance and the risk factors in the
Australian financial market in relation to cyber resilience. In fact, the employees must perceive
the ideas of using technologies and learn the way to use the technologies successfully.
Conclusion
Cyber resilience has become an integrating part of the banking and financial sectors
across the world. The recent issues of bank fraudulence and data breaching in the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia intensifies the situation for the business activities of
Australian financial institutions. Based on the above discussion, it can be argued that the cyber
resilience strategies that the report has discussed are quiet effective in the light of mitigating the
finance elated problems for the Australian customers. The five ways strategic planning may help
the Commonwealth Bank as well the entire industry to successful installation of the cyber
resilience mechanism. Therefore, it can be concluded that the report highlights the key aspects of

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the cyber resilience and finally reflects some measures to mitigate the issues of data breach. In
this context, the report is in-depth and accurate.