The rest of the decade will be even worse: ASIO boss issues dire terror threat warning

ASIO boss Mike Burgess has revealed that five major terror plots were foiled over the past year, as he issued a grim warning that Australia has never confronted so many serious national security threats at once.

Taking the unprecedented step of declassifying the spy agency’s security outlook for the next five years, Burgess said at least three countries had plotted to physically harm people in Australia over the past 12 months as he sounded the alarm on the rising threat of state-sanctioned murder.

ASIO boss Mike Burgess said the spy game rule book was being rewritten. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The agency’s previously secret security outlook to 2030 predicts the next five years will be more volatile and dangerous than the first half of the decade as dictatorships like Russia and Iran become increasingly aggressive.

Burgess said he feared that attacks on the Jewish community, which have surged since the beginning of the war in Gaza, “have not yet plateaued”, as he warned that extremists were increasingly self-radicalising and “choosing their own adventure” towards potential terrorist activity.

The spy boss, who last year lifted the national terror threat level from possible to probable, also sounded an alarm on Australian Defence personnel being relentlessly targeted by foreign spies, including by being given gifts containing concealed surveillance devices by their foreign counterparts.

“Australia has entered a period of strategic surprise and security fragility,” Burgess told an audience at ASIO headquarters in Canberra on Wednesday night.

“Over the next five years, a complex, challenging and changing security environment will become more dynamic, more diverse and more degraded ... If the spy game has a rule book, it is being rewritten. If there are red lines, they are being blurred, or deliberately rubbed out.”

Security sources said this was the first time an ASIO boss had declassified details from a security outlook in this way, with Burgess describing its findings as “frank” and “uncomfortable”.

Underlining the nation’s rising foreign interference threat, the federal government has warned foreign embassies and missions about seeking to interfere in the upcoming federal election, including by planting news stories about candidates or instructing people how to protest.

Burgess said that “high-impact sabotage” – such as an attempt to attack an AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine or unleash a major cyberattack – was becoming more likely, as was “state-sponsored or state-supported terrorism”.

“A small number of authoritarian regimes are behaving more aggressively, more recklessly, more dangerously,” he said. “More willing to engage in what we call ‘high-harm’ activities.”

Burgess, who was last year reappointed to another five-year term as ASIO boss, singled out Russia as a nation that could seek to attack Australia because of its support for Ukraine.

He also identified Iran as a prime candidate for seeking to inflict harm on Australia and its allies.

Burgess said ASIO had foiled “shocking assaults on Australian sovereignty and the freedoms we hold dear” over the past year, including attempts at foreign interference that could have ended in murder.

ASIO intelligence last year identified a foreign intelligence service that “wanted to harm and possibly kill one or more individuals on Australian soil”, he said.

“Working with our international partners, we determined this plot was part of a broader effort by the regime to eliminate critics of the foreign government around the world,” he said.

This followed an operation in which a foreign intelligence service tried to trick an Australia-based human rights activist into visiting a third country, where plotters would be waiting.

“They planned to arrange an ‘accident’ that was anything but accidental, with the objective of seriously injuring or even killing the activist,” Burgess said.

“Fortunately, ASIO intervened to stop the travel and foil the plot before it occurred.”

Burgess said that foreign intelligence services were increasingly targeting the AUKUS submarine project to collect valuable defence information and undermine the confidence of Australia’s allies.

“By 2030, as the submarine project matures, intelligence services are more likely to focus on foreign interference to undermine community support for the enterprise and potentially sabotage if regional tensions escalate,” he said.

Burgess said that cyber units from at least one nation state “routinely try to explore and exploit Australia’s critical infrastructure networks, almost certainly mapping systems so they can lay down malware or maintain access in the future”.

The Australian Signals Directorate last year issued a warning that a state-sponsored cyber group based in China, known as APT40, was conducting malicious activities in Australia and other nations.

In his previous threat assessment, Burgess sensationally revealed that foreign spies had recruited a former Australian politician who had “proposed bringing a prime minister’s family member into the spies’ orbit”.

Burgess’ refusal to identify the former politician set off frenzied speculation in Canberra and sparked criticism from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who called for the alleged traitor to be named.

Burgess previously revealed that ASIO had disrupted a foreign “hive of spies” trying to steal sensitive information while posing as diplomats in Australia. This masthead later revealed the spy ring was Russian.

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