Foreign intelligence agencies are targeting billions of Australian dollars worth of new weapons and platforms, the defence minister warned. (photo by Australian Navy website)
Moriarty (Greg Moriarty), under-Secretary of Defense, spoke at a national defense industry conference on August 2, the Australian Financial Review reported. He warned that foreign intelligence agencies were increasingly attacking Australia`s military and defence contractors targeting new weapons and platforms worth billions of Australian dollars. He also said Australia could lose its capacity advantage in the region as wealth grows in the Asia-Pacific region and investment in military increases.
Moriarty said: "A large number of cyber agents will continue to target the defence and defense industries, including foreign intelligence personnel, groups targeting certain issues, criminal gangs and individual hackers. We have a shared responsibility to work together to upgrade our systems to ensure that sensitive, commercial and other information is protected. "in the event of problems, whether spontaneous or agent-induced, we need to cooperate to achieve a rapid response, reasonable remedies, and communication in a common way."
(Malcolm Turnbull) government has launched a A $200 billion 10-year plan that includes building new frigates, patrol boats and submarines for the Navy, building armored vehicles for the Army and distributing joint attack fighters to the Air Force. Moriarty said the common challenge for defense and industry is to secure top-secret information and intellectual property.
However, Mr Moriarty warned defence companies that despite tens of billions of Australian dollars in new acquisitions and development of the domestic defence industry, government would not increase its investment at the expense of a return to the budget surplus.
Moriarty did not name China, but hinted at concerns about regional military. "in the last 10 years, maintaining regional superiority was a reassuring idea in national defense planning, but investment in military power in our region has broken that idea," he said.
Hansen (Fergus Hanson), an expert on cybersecurity at (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), the Australian Institute for Strategic Policy, said Australia was a high-value target, in part because it was a member of the "five-eyed (Five Eyes)" intelligence organization. This status allows the Australian Defense Forces (ADF) to gain access to top technology from the United States and the United Kingdom.
He said small and medium-sized businesses were a weakness in cybersecurity, and that government`s intention to outsource defence contracts and split them into many small businesses was fragile and could be exploited. China`s strategy, he added, is a jigsaw model: "collect all the pieces and put them together."
