Budget 2019: Cyber security ‘sprint teams’ to stop foreign spies and election interference

Cyber security “sprint teams” designed to chase foreign spies out of Australian government networks will be created ahead of this year’s federal election.

Cyber security “sprint teams” designed to chase foreign spies out of Australian government networks will be created ahead of this year’s federal election, in an attempt to protect the country’s most sensitive information and to stop interference.

The Morrison Government also unveiled plans to create a Cyber Security Response Fund within the Australian Cyber Security Centre, though it would not reveal how much funding would go to the scheme due to “national security reasons”.

The announcement followed an embarrassing and unprecedented online break-in to the Australian Parliament House network by spies from a foreign country in February, the likes of which Australia’s top online security adviser warned “would keep coming”.

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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has announced new funding to tackle cymber security threats. Picture: Gary Ramage

Individual online privacy and increased scrutiny on social media giants also received greater funding in this year’s Budget, it was revealed, with a $25 million boost for the Australian Information Officer to investigate privacy breaches and social networks including Facebook and Twitter.

Funding for the Government’s new anti-cyber spy measure will begin in July, though documents revealed it was in part designed to “ensure the integrity of the 2019 Federal Election” expected to be called for May.

The security boost, which received a five-year funding commitment, would protect “whole-of-government systems” using “enhanced monitoring and response capabilities,” Budget documents showed.

While it’s not known how much money will be used to fund the scheme, Australia’s new cyber security squads will have a challenging job after Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed an unknown but “sophisticated state actor” accessed the Australian parliamentary network earlier this year, and also infiltrated the computer networks of the Liberal, National, and Labor parties.

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National Cyber Security Adviser boss Alastair MacGibbon. Picture: Kym Smith

Australian Cyber Security Centre head Alastair MacGibbon warned similar hacking attacks “would keep coming” as Australia approached the federal election, even though it wasn’t clear whether the cyber spies had stolen sensitive information, or even if Australian attempts to get them out of the computer system worked.

“Any sophisticated hacker will make sure they have multiple ways into systems and multiple ways out,” Mr MacGibbon said.

Individuals concerned about their online privacy also received a boost in the Budget yesterday, as part of the Government’s crackdown on social media giants.

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An additional $25.1 million will go to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner over three years to respond to privacy complaints, and “support strengthened enforcement action” against social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat if they “breach privacy regulations”.

The funding boost was expected to be part of a larger action against the tech giants, after Mr Morrison revealed plans to introduction new laws to raise the maximum penalties for privacy breaches on their networks to $10 million, three times the value of benefits gained by the breach, or 10 per cent of their domestic turnover.

The plan could see Facebook fined up to $47 million, for example, based on its 2017 revenue.