On Monday February 27, 2023, the Prime Minister of Australia held a Cyber Security Roundtable.
Image by Freepik
Roundtable discussions
They discussed the incentivisation of best practice cyber behaviours, growth of Australia’s cyber security sector, national cyber awareness and new strategy. The Albanese Government announced the establishment of a Coordinator for Cyber Security, supported by a National Office for Cyber Security in the Department of Home Affairs. It’ll ensure a centrally coordinated approach to deliver Government’s cyber security responsibilities. The roundtable underlined the development of the Government’s 2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy.
Source: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/prime-ministers-cyber-security-roundtable
2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy
The Minister for Cyber Security announced on December 8, 2022 the initiation of this Strategy, aiming to build Australia’s cyber security and resilience. It focuses on four key areas:
- A secure economy and thriving cyber ecosystem;
- A secure and resilient critical infrastructure and government sector;
- A sovereign and assured capability to counter cyber threats;
- Partnership with neighbouring countries to lift cyber security and build a cyber resilient region. Ultimately, Australia would become a trusted and influential global cyber leader.
Expectation for enhancing and harmonising legislation
According to the Strategy, it is necessary to produce a package of regulatory reforms. They took into consideration a new CyberSecurity Act, outlining cyber-specific legal obligations and standards across industry and government. They also consider building up the SOCI Act, such as integrating customer data and ‘systems’ in the definition of critical assets to ensure the powers afforded to government, extending to major data breaches, for instance the persona data steal at Medibank and disclosure at Optus. Furthermore, the government pondered qualitative issues, including government practice in respect of information sharing, access, declassification of intelligence and existing regulatory frameworks, like the Privacy Act and the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt).
The Discussion still welcomes the public feedback until April 14, 2023.
The full text of the Discussion paper: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/reports-and-pubs/files/2023-2030_australian_cyber_security_strategy_discussion_paper.pdf
Media Release: https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/ClareONeil/Pages/expert-advisory-board-appointed-as-development.aspx
For more tech news in Australia on AstraIA Gear: https://www.astraiagear.com/2023/02/16/australia-gov-privacy-act-review-report/