A defence expert believes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is most likely the “sophisticated state-based cyber actor” Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned, but did not disclose, was instigating cyber-attacks on the Australian government and private organisations.
Michael Shoebridge of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said the prime minister’s remark that “there are not a large number of state-based actors that can engage in this type of activity” pointed to the Chinese regime.
‘Tradecraft’ of Cyberattacks Indicates ‘State-Based’ Actor
Shoebridge said it was well known that the Chinese regime engaged in regular, systematic cyberattacks against the Australian government, political parties, and businesses.Due to the increased level of “persistence and intensity” of the long-running cyberattacks, Shoebridge believes the prime minister may have judged it strategically necessary and a “duty of care” to bring it to public attention so that government and non-government organisations can look at their cybersecurity.
In fact, the prime minister told reporters during the press conference that: “Regrettably, this activity is not new. Frequency has been increasing.”
When questioned on which country was involved, Morrison would not be drawn, saying “public attribution” required an extremely high threshold before the government would consider such as act.”
He said, however: “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.”
Morrison said the reason he was making the announcement was to “raise awareness of these specific risks” and encourage organisations to take “expert advice and to implement technical defences to thwart this malicious cyber activity.”
Shoebridge said it is likely the cyber actors have been working to get “credentials and access” to the systems of different Australian organisations and are a “persistent presence” in this area.
“There’s no evidence of disruption or disabling of systems, so what they’re seeing is the presence of state actors on systems to get hold of information.”
An example of how “information advantage” could come into play, is it gives a government or business, an advantage over a rival entity during negotiations.
Beijing’s Unrestricted Warfare on the West
The CCP’s cyber capabilities are superior to many other countries due to its scale, according to Shoebridge:“The Chinese scale of cyber activity is larger because they’re wealthier, they have a lot of homegrown technologies they can use, and also it’s a state-corporate endeavour where state-owned and private corporations can be compelled to work for the state, and that adds to their capability.”
“That’s partly why the Chinese activity is the larger problem globally,” he added.
In recent years, Beijing has passed a series of laws to tighten its grip over the private sector so it can leverage these facets of society against its rivals.
“It does highlight the risk that Chinese state-owned or private corporations can be compelled by the Chinese state to cooperate, and compelled not to disclose that cooperation,” Shoebridge said.
“That gives them access to technologies, applications and capabilities they don’t have to build in government, and they can use from their commercial world,” he added.
