Working to keep us cyber-safe

The scale of cyber-security threats has increased exponentially over the past few years. This is not only in the volume of attacks but also the sophistication of hackers, who are constantly developing new ways to attack organisations and individuals. Churches are not immune.

Cyber attacks were ‘relatively rare’ when he started working for the church in 2010, says Daniel Wiltshire, who leads the LCANZ’s team of IT specialists. Today his small team defends the church against as many as 15,000 attacks a day. These attacks might be designed to infiltrate (or ‘hack’) a network or steal money or data. Extortion attempts can arrive as ‘phishing’ emails or fake websites.

Daniel and his team have been working with LCANZ members to introduce new security measures to better combat the hackers. These include passphrases (rather than passwords) and multi-factor authentication on LCANZ email accounts.

Brett Hausler, Executive Officer of the Church, adds that cyber security is not only the IT team’s responsibility. ‘This is our problem’, he says. ‘Every time we log in on our laptop or device, we’re a potential target for thieves. So, it’s important that every one of us takes these threats seriously and does everything we can to protect ourselves and every person we interact with.’

To learn more about measures you can take to protect yourself and others, go to www.lca.org.au/cybersecurity

MEET THE LCANZ IT TEAM

After Daniel Wiltshire, a 26-year veteran of the IT industry, the next longest-serving member of LCANZ IT Services is Nathan Vosgerau, who began a traineeship with the team in 2014. Keenan Manto, who also joined in 2014, left earlier this year to work in school-based IT support. New to the LCANZ team in 2022 are Ashley Rice, who previously worked for six years with internet service provider Internode in Adelaide, and Roya Amini, who most recently worked in IT support in construction in Sydney. Brisbane-based web developer David Mau is a part-time member of the IT team.

Formerly based at Australian Lutheran College prior to a 2016 move into the church’s national office, the LCANZ IT team of that era looked after the needs of approximately 200 people. It now serves around 4000 people, including pastors and other church workers, volunteers, congregation office holders and Synod delegates.

HOW DOES THE IT SERVICES TEAM SERVE THE CHURCH?

LCANZ IT is committed to developing systems and processes to support rapid, reliable and effective sharing of information across our church, including access to the wide range of LCANZ resources to support mission and ministry in local contexts across Australia and New Zealand. The team also provides advice to congregational leaders about their church cyber security needs.