Australia Not an Easy Cyber Target Says Home Affairs Minister

Clare Ellen O'Neil Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Cyber Security at Parliament House on September 1, 2022 in Canberra, Australia. Martin Ollman/Getty Images

Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs, Claire O'Neil, has denied that Australians are easy targets for hackers, despite millions of Australians suffering from data and privacy breaches in multiple cyber attacks over the past 12 months.

The comment comes after a Russian hacker told the ABC’s Four Corners program that he thought Australians were the stupidest people alive when it came to cybersecurity.

Speaking to Radio National on Tuesday, O'Neil said that she didn’t believe that Australia was an easy target but did acknowledge that the Albanese government was five years behind where it needed to be in keeping Australia cyber secure.

“There is an enormous amount of effort going into making sure that Australia is a hard target, and we are making significant ground on that,” O'Neil said.

“We’ve set up Hack the Hackers, which is the first time the Australian government has asked the Federal Police and the cyber guns in the Australian Signals Directorate to work together to basically turn their energies and forces onto debilitating and degrading the ability of the hacking groups.

“And that work is going really, really well, and it’s a model that countries around the world are looking at.”

An engineering student takes part in a hacking challenge near Paris on March 16, 2013. AFP via Getty Images/Thomas Samson

She said that the federal government had set minimum standards for Australian companies working in critical sectors and changed privacy laws “so that there are real penalties for companies that don’t protect the data of Australians.”

The federal government is also making cyber exercises mandatory for companies that work in critical industries, all of which O'Neil said would move the country towards to goal of being the most “cyber secure country in the world by 2030.”

Australia Facing Targeted Campaign of Cyberattacks

The comments from the minister come after a raft of cyber incidents targeting major public companies like Medibank, Australia’s larger health insurer; Optus, the second largest telecommunications company; and EnergyAustralia, one of the three largest energy companies.

Hackers have also attacked Australian universities like Queensland University of Technology, as well as the defence department and private companies Vinomofo, Woolworths’ MyDeal, and Medlab.

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The Australian government has said it will strike back against cyber hackers, creating a 100-person strong task force staffed by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).

The task force has said it will debilitate hackers and ransomware syndicates around the world before crimes have been committed by collecting intelligence and identifying ring-leaders, networks, and infrastructure to disrupt and stop cyber-criminal syndicates.

People walk past a shop front for Medibank in Sydney, Australia, on Nov. 11, 2022. The health insurer was hit by one of Australia's largest cyber hacks in 2022. Muhammad Farooq/AFP via Getty Images

“The recent Optus and Medibank data breaches have shown the extent of the damage that can be done by malicious actors. This new joint campaign will ensure the full powers of the AFP and ASD are brought to bear to stop such incidents before they start,” said O'Neil in a joint media release along with Defence Minister Richard Marles and Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in November 2022.

“Where incidents do take place, it means that cybercriminals will be hunted down and their networks disrupted. It sends an important message to criminals and hackers intending to do harm—Australia will fight back.”

Australia’s Failing CyberSecurity Strategy Down to Coalition Government

O'Neil alleged that the problems Australia are facing in the cyber sector were due to the failures of the previous federal government.

“We’ve set up an incident response function in the Australian government, which, frankly, should have existed a long time ago but didn’t,” she said.

“Australia should be and can be the most cyber secure country in the world by 2030. But we need focus and energy, and attention. And that’s what this problem is getting for the first time.”