A wide range of political and private sector organisations in Australia have come under cyber-attack carried out by a “sophisticated state-based cyber actor”, the Australian government has revealed.
Scott Morrison disclosed the far-reaching attacks at a media conference in Canberra on Friday, while his defence minister declared that malicious cyber activity was “increasing in frequency, scale, in sophistication and in its impact”.
The government is not saying which country it believes to be responsible, expect to say it is “a state-based actor, with very significant capabilities”. The prime minister declined to respond to a specific question about whether it was China, after months of tensions in its relationship with Australia.
“I’m here today to advise you that, based on advice provided to me by our cyber experts, Australian organisations are currently being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor,” Morrison told reporters.
“This activity is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure.
“We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting and the tradecraft used. The Australian government is aware of and alert to the threat of cyber-attacks.”
Morrison said the activity was “not new” but the frequency had been increasing “over many months”.
He said investigations conducted so far had not revealed any “large-scale personal data breaches” of Australians’ private information. Cybersecurity, he added, had been “a constant issue for Australia to deal with”.
The prime minister said Australia was working closely with its allies and partners to manage cyber threats. He had spoken with his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, about the issue on Thursday night.
Morrison said the government was speaking publicly about the issue not to raise concerns but to raise awareness. He encouraged organisations, particularly those in health critical infrastructure and essential services, to “implement technical defences to thwart this malicious cyber activity”.
The prime minister declined to name, at this stage, which country was believed to be responsible. He said the threshold of evidence to attribute an attack to a particular country publicly was “extremely high”.
“Australia doesn’t engage lightly in public attributions and when and if we choose to do so is always done in the context of what we believe to be in our strategic national interests,” he said.
“What I can confirm is there are not a large number of state-based actors that can engage in this type of activity and it is clear, based on the advice that we have received, that this has been done by a state-based actor, with very significant capabilities.”
He said the government would release a new cybersecurity strategy in the coming months and that would include significant further funding to strengthen defences against attacks of this nature.
Morrison said the government’s expert agency on cyber matters, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, had published a range of technical advisory notices to alert potential targets and had been briefing states and territories on risks and mitigations.
The ACSC had been actively working with targeted organisations to ensure that they had appropriate technical mitigations in place and their defences were appropriately raised. The centre and a range of private cybersecurity providers had been working together with the affected entities “to thwart this activity”.
The defence minister, Linda Reynolds, said there was no doubt that malicious cyber activity was increasing in its sophistication and impact, which harmed Australia’s national security and economic interests. She urged all Australian organisations to be alert to the threat and take steps to protect their networks.
The government briefed the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, about the matter on Thursday evening.
source https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/19/australia-cyber-attack-attacks-hack-state-based-actor-says-australian-prime-minister-scott-morrison
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