The cybersecurity strategy will be led by former Telstra Chief Executive Officer Andy Penn, cybersecurity expert Rachel Faulk and former Air Force Chief Air Marshal Mel Hapfeld.
“This amazing group of Australians, plus some of the biggest cyber guns in the world, love the scale of our ambition. [and] They agreed to help,” O’Neill said.
Ciaran Martin, the first chief executive of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, will lead a global panel of experts to advise governments.
Declaring that Australians are beginning to wake up from their ‘cyber slumber’, Mr O’Neill said:
Last month, the government announced it would create a 100-person team in the Australian Federal Police and Australian Signals Directorate dedicated to tracking hackers and ransomware groups.
“It will be a while before we can hear this song, but when it does, it will change the cybersecurity game for our country,” O’Neill said.
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O’Neill said the Albanian government would be the first in Australian history to have disaster management as a “centralized, well-coordinated, permanent function of the Australian government”.
“It’s time for all of us to stop feigning shock over once-in-a-generation floods, fires and storms,” she said.
“Disaster management needs to be a routine, seamless and well-executed function of the Australian government so that government and communities are not completely caught up in disasters in the event of multiple disasters.”
O’Neil said her department has started a new program to “directly engage with potential targets of foreign interference” such as the diaspora community so that they can learn how foreign interference agents operate. I said to make it understandable.
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The Department’s National Resilience Task Force will also look at ways to strengthen Australian democracy.
“We know that foreign interference, misinformation and disinformation are on the rise. This includes thinking about new generation initiatives in
“And we need to explore what we can do with technology companies to reduce the polarization and spread of deception that has become such an important part of our lives.”
CyberCX Chief Strategy Officer Alastair MacGibbon welcomed the plan to make Australia a more “cyber-resilient country”, adding that the previous government has launched significant cybersecurity initiatives.
Adrian Covich, senior director at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint, describes the strategy as “a timely and necessary development that we hope will play a key role in strengthening Australia’s cyber resilience.”
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, opinion and expert analysis by Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up for the weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
