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Thursday, January 24, 2013

24 January 2013

Recently, Julia Gillard and the Labor Government have announced the formation of a Cyber Security Centre as part of Australia's increasingly sobering stance on cyber attacks. This new centre will be an ADF initiative, inevitably tying in nicely with the AFP, DSD and ASIO.
The full report can be found here. Bit of a read, but a skim through the executive summary and contents is more than enough.

Cyber-related attacks range from cyber-crime, hacktivism or DDOS, all the way to full-blown cyber espionage, hacking or malicious computer viruses.
This stance did not come as a surprise. Australia has been placing more and more focus on cyber-security as of late. As it should. Australian government agencies alone receive over 2,400 cyber attacks daily as of mid-2012. A recent survey has found that a third of global cyber attacks originate from China (although I don't know how this figure could be ascertained given the amount of proxies, botnets and encryption used in most of them).
This stance is also in-line with that of many other countries bolstering their cyber-arsenal - China has recently devoted an entire division of the PLA to cyber-warriors, as has the US. The recently established US CYBERCOM is a similar initiative, and most NATO countries are in talks to form a cyber-alliance treaty. However, the question of cyber attack as acts of war are still being debated.

The formation of an Australian Cyber Security Centre may increase the tensions with China. The Australian Defence White Paper, along with the recent 'Asian Century' focus have sent clear messages to China about our stance - we know we have to work together, we know we need you and you need us, but we are still keeping our guard very much up.
The Labor Government has also disallowed any bids for NBN infrastructure from Chinese telco bohemoth Huawei because of their links to the PLA. This, along with the formation of a US Marine base in Darwin, sends a crystal clear message to Beijing.

Today's Daily Quota is an article from the contrarian, and generally left-wing, New Matilda. It's an opinion piece that criticises the Labor Government's decision.
I disagree with this article's stance. Via my own extensive research on the topic, I've found that their stance is a smart one. The future of warfare is very much in cyberspace, and Australia has to bolster itself if we are to become a formidable player in the Asia-Pacific region.
My only concern about this newfound cyber-security scheme is the potential to turn out like this...

READ IT HERE


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