And the government says those types of crimes are becoming more frequent and sophisticated.
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Acknowledging that cyber security is a problem for Australia won’t come as a surprise for the many businesses that have been struck by ransomware and financial fraud attacks that have really ramped up in the last 18 months.
“Authorised working relationships between government and certain private sector partners were unfortunately damaged in the release of stolen documents by Edward Snowden, and we recently saw in the exchanges between Apple and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the difficulty that modern encryption poses for law enforcement”.
While agencies don’t believe there’s yet been a serious cyber attack – which is defined as compromising national security – there are thousands of intrusions every year.
“Key to this strategy’s effectiveness – and to the protection of all businesses – will be a recognition that cyber security is not just an IT issue but rather a business issue that requires ownership by the C-suite and understanding by all departments”.
Lynwen Connick, First Assistant Secretary, Cyber Policy and Intelligence Division, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will give the keynote address at the CeBIT Cyber Security conference on 2 May, outlining the Government’s new Cyber Security Strategy and how private-public cooperation will be facilitated to boost innovation and improve cyber skills.
The Government will also bankroll security testing for some 5000 small to medium enterprises, and provide ASX 100 companies “governance health checks” which will be eventually offered up to the broader industry.
The new strategy and review calls for the Australian Government to invest an additional $230 million over the next four years in an effort to strengthen cyber security efforts.
The strategy’s centrepiece involves sharing threat information between business and government, using the existing Australian Cyber Security Centre and new portals in capital cities.
These advanced next-generation cyber security solutions are supporting the need for a security forum protecting public and private infrastructure which is estimated to save trillions of dollars affected by cyber-crimes globally in the coming years.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled the strategy at an event in Sydney, nearly a fortnight after the text of the strategy was substantially leaked.
Mr Turnbull said building up the domestic ability to construct new ships was critical to Australia’s security.
With this move towards enhanced defensive and offensive capabilities, the Australian government hopes to prevent future incidents like the massive breach its Bureau of Metereology suffered back in December 2015. The importance of cyber security to the state of our nation can not be stressed enough.
“I asked questions when I saw this one”, she said.
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Commenting on the Cyber Security Strategy, Commonwealth Bank’s chief information security and trust officer, Ben Heyes, said this was an important step in creating a strong, secure and resilient modern economy.
