The Minister for Home Affairs and for Cyber Security, The Hon Clare O’Neil, announced the Cyber Security Strategy 2023 spearheaded by the Board of advisors chaired by former Telstra CEO Andrew Penn AO, Mel Hupfeld AO DSC and Rachael Falk.
The Minister released a discussion paper in which the advisory board will engage with industry, civil society and academia. This will have the aim to present recommendations for the steps for the current governments 2023 - 2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy.
The announcements by the minister encouraged all users of the internet to be involved in the cyber strategy discussion.
“Everyone has skin in the game when it comes to Australia’s cyber security. If you use the internet, have a smart device in your home, or have a perspective on what Australia’s cyber security should look like” said the Minister for Home Affairs.
The government has outlined its aims to gather greater industry insight in to establishing a framework to secure economy, critical infrastructure and establish Australia as a global cyber leader.
According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) 2021-22 Threat Report, one incident is reported on average every 7 minutes with over 76,000 cybercrime reports in 2021-22.
“The incident with Medibank really showed the government that there was no functional cyber incident response mechanism within the Australian government,” reported Senator O’Neil.
In the latest interview by ABC News, the Cyber Security Minister outlined the determination by the Albanese Government to set a new 2023-2030 strategy conducting an engagement model with industry government agencies to review legislation.
“It will make sure that all that great work that's happening in government and out in the community will be properly, strategically managed to make sure that we're cyber safe as a country. And the second is to make sure that when cyber incidents do occur, as they will continue to occur, we can quickly get back up off the mat and make sure that we're cyber resilient,” O’Niel said.
The recent document released emphasised the potential consideration of a new CyberSecurity Act, drawing together cyber-specific legislative obligations and standards across industry and government. It also makes reference to whether further developments to the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act is justified.
The rapidly changing cyberspace environment has brought urgency to the Albanese Government to act in readiness to new technology that is not yet fully mature in Australia. The request for expert opinions wishes to leverage Australian knowledge, specially looking at a number of emerging technologies, such as quantum communications technologies which will form key components in assisting in the formulation of designing and sustaining security in new technologies towards 2030.
The Cyber Security Strategy Discussion request for responses will close 15 April 2023.
