Australia’s Critical Infrastructure Is Under Constant Attack

A cyber attack is being reported in Australia every 7.8 minutes as sophisticated hackers, including foreign governments, target the nation’s critical infrastructure and essential services such as hospitals, food distribution and electricity systems. 

Australia has reported a 13% jump in cyber crime in the past year, with about one incident in four targeting critical infrastructure and services as working from home during the pandemic made more people vulnerable to online attacks. 

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) says that malicious actors have pivoted to exploit the those working from home and targeting vulnerable people and health services to conduct espionage, and steal money and sensitive data. The wave of hacks last financial year included a significant ransomware attack against a Victorian public health service in March, which affected four hospitals and aged care homes and resulted in the postponement of elective surgeries.

These incidents have “underscored the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to significant disruption in essential services, lost revenue and the potential of harm or loss of life”.

The ACSC, which is part of the Australian Signals Directorate spy agency, received more than 67,500 reports of cyber crime of all types in 2020-21, or one every eight minute compared with one every 10 minutes the previous year  The ACSC also report  ransomware attacks disclosed to the ACSC increased 15% in the 2020-21 financial year, when compared with the previous financial year. The report found cyber criminals exploited the Coronavirus situation in Australia, with more than 18,000 cybercrimes related to the pandemic.

The ACSC report, which covers the period from July 2020 to June 2021, says businesses, individuals and other entities had incurred more than $33bn in total losses from cyber crime throughout the year.

Cyber criminals sought to exploit the pandemic by encouraging recipients to enter personal credentials to access Covid-related information or services, while unnamed foreign governments targeted the health sector seeking “access to intellectual property or sensitive information about Australia’s response to Covid”.

The ACSC responded to about 1,630 cybersecurity incidents in 2020-21, or an average of 31 cybersecurity incidents a week.
“Approximately one quarter of reported cybersecurity incidents affected critical infrastructure organisations, including essential services such as education, health, communications, electricity, water and transport,” the report says. A breakdown of the severity of cyber incidents in 2020-21 shows there were 14 cases in which federal government entities or nationally significant infrastructure suffered the removal or damage of sensitive data or intellectual property.

The Australian government has been growing increasingly concerned about the threat of “grey zone” attacks from countries such as China and Russia. The “grey zone” refers to a growing area of political warfare that falls somewhere between war and peace and includes cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, intellectual property theft, coercion and propaganda.

ACSC:     Reuters:    7News:    Bloomberg:    SMH:      The Age:     Guardian: 

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