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There are reportedly increasing attacks on Australia’s secure communications network.
CHINESE and Russian spies have reportedly stepped up their cyber attacks on Australian government networks with hundreds of hacking attempts now made every month.
According to The Australian, there has been a sharp rise in serious attacks on the government’s secure network in Canberra.
Hundreds of attempts to infiltrate the network, used by 97 agencies, are now made every month.
Government agencies are being urged to encrypt more of their data and protect it from hacking from those wanting to uncover military, political and economic secrets.
The attacks are mostly being blamed on foreign spies, with the largest number coming from China, followed by Russia and Indonesia.
The government will not admit if agencies have been hacked and denies its systems are vulnerable. Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said it treated the security of its information very seriously.
“All government communications networks are protected in that they are subject to appropriate security and encryption regimes, matching the requirements for the security classification of information transÂmitted across them,†he told The Australian.
In Canberra about 400 government buildings are connected via 160,000km of fibre cables which ensure low-level “protected†information can be transmitted safely.
But agencies are encouraged to encrypt sensitive communications further because it’s feared hackers may be able to physically access the cable and potentially tap the network.
The report comes as China was blamed in December for a major attack on the computers at the Bureau of Meteorology. The breach identified a flaw in the system that will reportedly cost millions to fix.
One expert speculated that the BOM may have been targeted because it uses one of Australia’s largest supercomputers and provides critical information to other government departments such as the Department of Defence or the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), potentially providing access to their systems.
Curtin University cyber security expert Mihai Lazarescu has previously warned that Australia was not taking the threat of cyber warfare seriously enough.
The Turnbull government is expected to release its cybersecurity strategy in the first half of this year and Independent senator Nick Xenophon wants an upper house inquiry on cyber security.