Partnering for data sovereignty protection

Technology’s role in society is increasing, creating an even greater cybersecurity challenge for governments to solve. As the nation faces an array of complex security challenges in coming years, Minister for Home Affairs Clare O’Neil has announced a program to develop a new cybersecurity strategy to strengthen the country’s critical infrastructure and become the “world’s most cyber secure country by 2030”.

Proposed plans outlined by O’Neil include a new national cybersecurity strategy, new sovereign capabilities and a hardening of government systems and critical infrastructure. O’Neil believes the new national strategy has got to be a partnership between the private sector, government and Australian citizens, focusing more on sovereign capabilities, strengthening critical infrastructure and government systems, and international engagement.

With a cyber reset underway, Australia can bolster its national security capabilities to protect data by working with cybersecurity partners that bring deep experience, trusted and verified capability, secure global supply chains and interoperability. Working together, government and the private sector can tackle rapidly emerging threats and maintain secure and resilient networks and systems. When looking to team up with trusted cybersecurity partners, governments should consider five important factors.

1. Global cyber intelligence and research

The cyber landscape is always evolving; however, the risk is increasing and forcing organisations to strengthen their defences against new and emerging cyber threats and breaches. Securing cyber-enabled equipment in networks and the data that flows between them is vital in a hyper-connected world. Investment in research and development is required for a safer cybersecurity future and is a key component of the government’s ability to reduce cyber threats to critical infrastructure and supply chains. While the government can use cybersecurity laws to investigate and act against cybercrimes, it can’t mitigate all the incoming threats alone.

Building cyber resilience requires a sharing of knowledge and understanding of threats between government and critical infrastructure operators, service providers and cybersecurity companies. Strong public–private partnerships are the foundation for effective critical infrastructure security and resilience strategies, and will offer more focused, practical and cost-effective new technology.

2. Strong and trusted global supply chains

To secure Australia’s tactical advantage, organisations within government, defence, national security and industries covered under critical infrastructure legislation must be using mission-critical technology while maintaining cyber resilience. These sectors face growing challenges relying on increasingly complex supply chains and cyber vulnerabilities across multiple angles. Australia’s geographic location and size limit its capability to locally design, manufacture and distribute high-value cyber goods and services.

Defending Australia and its national interests requires partners with strong and trusted global supply chains and the ability to draw on globally scalable production capabilities.

3. Significant experience in protecting critical infrastructure

Critical infrastructure such as hospitals, railway networks and telecommunications companies are under daily attack from sophisticated cybercriminals and nation state actors. Recent global and onshore attacks demonstrate the need for stronger cyber resilience across critical infrastructure and supply chains. Partnering with a global security leader with deep experience in protecting operational technology (OT) can help governments and businesses better understand and defend against cyber threats. A trusted partner will focus on building cyber resilience that combines advanced segmentation with access control and malware protection.

A trusted partner will also focus on building cyber resilience that leverages network segmentation, rigorous access control and malware protection that provides greater threat visibility to deliver ease of operation and machine-speed response for dealing with threats at an enormous scale.

4. A partner that can deal with all aspects of cyber threats

Historically, Australian governments and critical infrastructure entities have approached cybersecurity from a product perspective; however, the modern cyber threat requires a more integrated approach that manages components as a full system. Defence systems need to work together at machine speed to better support the scarce cyber defenders tasked with building, integrating and operating these complex systems. Best cybersecurity practices at a national level require a holistic approach that protects against cyber threats at every point in complex business, critical infrastructure and government operations.

Security risks can occur at a variety of levels, increasing the importance of setting up security measures that provide multiple layers of defence against these risks. The cybersecurity mesh is a modern approach to security architecture that enables a complex distributed enterprise to deploy and extend security where it’s most needed. It implements zero trust end to end in the network, while also enabling the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. This ensures the rapid detection of threats and automated orchestration that will identify and contain those threats as well as automatically heal impacted systems without human intervention.

5. Access to advanced cybersecurity training

Humans are a necessary part of modern cybersecurity, and their skills are essential in the battle against cybercrime. According to the Office of the Australian Commissioners (OAIC) Notifiable Data Breaches Report, 41% of all data breaches for July to December 2021 were the result of human error, emphasising the importance that training plays in cyber defence to ensure stronger data protection by increasing understanding of the latest threats and possible solutions. It’s essential that cyber training and awareness become a foundational requirement for all employees, regardless of role.

Cybersecurity training must be relevant and engaging and extended to all parts of the economy, including business partners and subcontractors who are trained and committed to protecting data from cyber threats. Because of the ever-changing nature of the threat landscape, training should also cover a broad range of topics to better equip employees to defend themselves against these threats. Working with a highly qualified partner with comprehensive cybersecurity and awareness training will help prepare Australia to deal with risks and threats in its systems, networks and devices.

Government and industry partnerships

Threats against Australia’s critical infrastructure are becoming more complex, more prolific and more frequent. The 2021 cyber attack on Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the US, involved ransomware and caused the company to suspend operations for days and seriously disrupted many communities along the US east coast. In 2022, a major Australian telecommunications company was the victim of a massive cyber attack that compromised the personal information of current and former customers. Not long after, an Australian private health insurer suffered a similar cyber incident, with the data of millions of customers caught up in the massive breach.

Events of that magnitude are going to continue to hit Australian shores, revealing a troubling truth: the scope and scale of the cyber threat problem is too big for governments to tackle alone. Australia needs to bolster its national security capabilities to protect data by joining forces with trusted private sector partners and share threat intelligence, foster cyber education and sharpen incident-response capabilities to defend complex economies and societies.

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