Government’s $9.9b cybersecurity spend is worth every dollar
The ASD celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, with a long and prestigious history of delivering high-quality intelligence reports to government decision-makers.
But today’s age of real-time cyber incident response, staggeringly large data volumes and decision-making at machine speed doesn’t fit the traditional intelligence model.
Tech demands
The Australian Defence Force is positioning for wars against drone fleets and smart technologies, where data collected from sensors in their F35 jets can be enriched with intelligence from multiple sources while in flight, and AI-guided missiles can be countered automatically.
Real-time support for the ADF requires technology such as cloud computing and edge computing, high-speed connections and low-latency data processing. It also needs a workforce that can use smart systems to scale-up its analysis and source the most valuable information.
Although it is true that the architecture that made traditional intelligence so successful could be poked, prodded and stretched in various ways to accommodate the new cyber ecosystem, this will quickly become expensive.
A purpose-built system with the ability to scale would be the smarter and ultimately cheaper choice. And, what Defence really cannot afford is for any such system to break – as that could cost lives.
If tomorrow Australia was to find itself victimised in a war like Ukraine, having both our seat of government and the bulk of our cyber capabilities concentrated in Canberra would make it a very tempting target for an adversary seeking to cripple our ability to respond.
So, yesterday’s announcement that 40 per cent of the ASD’s expanded workforce would be located outside Canberra is a crucial step forward.
This move is equally crucial for building a cyber-skilled workforce. Australia already has a shortage of cyber and STEM skills needed to protect the national infrastructure and develop the kind of smart, AI-driven capabilities needed for the future.
There is an even smaller pool of those people prepared to move to Canberra and take a pay cut for the sake of serving the public, when compared with the private sector and international markets.
Defence needs to adapt and make it easy for those people to contribute flexibly, from their own cities, or it will struggle to attract the requisite talent.
Partnering with the technology industry and academia around the country as well as trusted allies around the world – which REDSPICE will also allow for – will be critical in building the infrastructure and the cyber-skilled workforce needed.
Australia already has excellent cyber capabilities, and has good friends in the Five-Eyes partnership. However, it cannot afford to fail at cybersecurity – far too much of our government, economy, critical services and private lives are online – and the current investment is too limited to combat the range of threats.
The 9.9 billion announced in Tuesday’s budget is a very legitimate expenditure. At tech industry rates, $9.9 billion is a good price.
Karly Winkler is acting deputy director of the International Cyber Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
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