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In the wake of Australia appointing its first cyber security coordinator, leaders of industry and the private sector have responded with their feedback on the move.
Air Vice-Marshal Darren Goldie was signed off by the federal cabinet last week as the new cyber security coordinator, a role which will see him coordinate the cyber response across government departments as part of Home Affairs, with the backing of a National Office for Cyber Security.
The move has been generally received well by the industry, with many applauding the government for honouring its pledge to make Australia a much more cyber secure nation.
“It’s reassuring to see the government continuing to deliver on its commitments to strengthen Australia’s cyber security positioning in the face of growing threats domestically and internationally, including with this appointment of the country’s first ever cyber security coordinator,” said senior solutions engineer and product strategy for AvePoint, Bruce Berends.
“With a broad range of government initiatives and programs being introduced or updated, including long-overdue updates to our security and privacy-related regulations and legislation, it will be critical for the government to have the skills and leadership capabilities internally to ensure departments are working collaboratively where appropriate to keep Australia secure.”
While a step in the right direction, experts such as Professor Monica Whitty, head of department of software systems and cybersecurity, faculty of information technology at Monash University, have said that due to the rapid rate at which technology and threat techniques are evolving, the government needs to take a closer look at preventing attacks rather just responding to them.
“[The new role] would ideally also coordinate how to prevent attacks,” she said.
“Also, it would be important for them to prepare for future attacks, given that the technology evolves — often at a breakneck pace.”
Furthermore, industry leaders and experts are saying that the rate at which the government is bolstering its cyber security is not fast enough.
“While the government is making progress, the rate of change and scale of resources available to bad actors around the world will always be higher,” added Berends.
“If businesses are waiting for the government to regulate how they should behave to stay secure, they risk always being two steps behind cyber criminals.
“Preventative measures need to be taken in tandem with government-led changes, and for businesses, this requires a top-down approach led by boards.”
The chief information security officer at Sekuro, Prashant Haldankar, agrees that the government needs to continue to implement more of what it has promised, when it promises to do so.
“Whilst we’ve not gotten the separate ministry that cyber security so desperately needs, our first cyber security coordinator is definitely a step in the right direction,” he said.
“What we need now is for the government to continue to deliver on their promises.”
The delayed appointment of a cyber security coordinator has already been called out by the opposition, with shadow cyber security minister James Paterson raising the concern as to why a coordinator was not appointed in March when the government “promised” to do so.
“[The] announcement follows questions from the opposition in the Senate this week to explain the delay when Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil promised to have a cyber security coordinator in action in March this year,” Paterson said.
“The delay means the coordinator commences duties in the height of a cyber crisis,” he added, referring to the HWL Ebsworth hack, which has reportedly compromised a number of government departments, including the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
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