Cisco’s new Australian boss has called for smaller defence contractors to receive adequate funding in order to comply with strict new national security rules, while warning that the diversification of global semiconductor supply has reached a critical point for national digital independence.

Ben Dawson, who has just returned from heading up Cisco’s US web infrastructure business for the huge US tech FAANG companies, said Cisco’s own cyber threat intelligence organisation, Talos, was blocking 20 billion threats a day and that the strength of cyber security was now the top priority for companies around the world, particularly in industries such as defence.