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The Australian spy chief says that “crack cyber teams” are investigating Australian networks and infrastructure, and it’s happening right now.
The director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has used his annual threat assessment to deliver a stark warning regarding aggressive cyber espionage targeting Australia.
While warning of the danger of foreign sabotage against both soft and hard targets, director-general Mike Burgess noted that the lowest cost vector for sabotage, and potentially the most damaging, is cyber.
“The most immediate, low cost and potentially high-impact vector for sabotage is cyber,” Burgess said. “Our critical infrastructure networks are interconnected and interdependent, which increases the vulnerabilities and potential access points.”
“ASIO is aware of one nation-state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks.”
According to Burgess, the country’s “reconnaissance is highly sophisticated, using top-notch tradecraft to map networks, test for vulnerabilities, knock on digital doors and check the digital locks”.
Burgess does not believe the country in question is actively planning anything, but is merely attempting to gain “persistent, undetected access” so that sabotage could be conducted if needed in the future. And while Burgess did not mention a specific nation-state, it’s highly likely he was referring to hackers backed by China.
“I’m not sure the potential harm is widely understood,” Burgess said.
The director-general used last year’s nationwide Optus outage as an example of the kind of disruption such sabotage could achieve. The outage caused social impacts between families and medical impacts due to a lack of access to emergency services. Even banking systems were affected, and many retail outlets were unable to process transactions.
“That’s one phone network not working for one day. Imagine the implications if a nation-state took down all the networks? Or turned off the power during a heatwave?” Burgess said.
“I assure you, these are not hypotheticals – foreign governments have crack cyber teams investigating these possibilities right now, although they are only likely to materialise during a conflict or near conflict.”
You can read the director-general’s full speech here.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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