ASIO boss warns Australian critical infrastructure systems "routinely ...

Australian critical infrastructure networks are being “routinely” targeted and “almost certainly” mapped  by the cyber units of a single nation state, according to the boss of the country’s spy agency.

Giving an annual threat speech, ASIO’s director-general of security Mike Burgess warned that foreign regimes are actively “pre-positioning cyber access vectors they can exploit in the future”.

“Cyber units from at least one nation state routinely try to explore and exploit Australia’s critical infrastructure networks, almost certainly mapping systems so they can lay down malware or maintain access in the future,” Burgess said.

The threat of “high-impact sabotage” of critical infrastructure networks would likely worsen over the next five years, he predicted.

The motivations of threat actors would vary: from impeding decision-making, to damaging warfighting capabilities and sowing social discord.

This is not all theory: ASIO said one of the same units targeting Australia had also been “recently” doing the same activities on “critical networks in the United States”.

“ASIO worked closely with our American counterpart to evict the hackers and shut down their global accesses, including nodes here in Australia,” he said.

The spy agency boss also touched on the role that artificial intelligence might play in undermining global security.

Burgess said AI and “deeper online pools of personal data vulnerable to collection, exploitation and analysis by foreign intelligence services” were a dangerous mix for advancing the interests of foreign intelligence and espionage.

He also predicted that AI “will enable disinformation and deep fakes that can promote false narratives, undermine factual information and erode trust in institutions.”