Cyber attack threatens all levels of nation

AUSTRALIA is being targeted by a “sophisticated statebased cyber actor” in an escalating campaign threatening all levels of government, businesses, essential services and critical infrastructure, the prime minister has said.

Scott Morrison would not name the state but there was speculation that the cyber attacks were part of Australia’s increasingly hostile rift with China, which has recently banned beef exports from Australia’s largest abattoirs, ended barley trade with a tariff wall, and warned its citizens against visiting the southern nation.

The measures are widely interpreted as punishment for Australia’s advocacy of an independent probe into the origins and spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Morrison said the threat was being made public to try to get organisations involved in health, critical infrastructure and essential services to bolster technical defences. He said a range of sectors are being targeted and the frequency of cyber intrusions to steal and cause harm has increased for months, adding: “This is the actions of a statebased actor with significant capabilities. There aren’t too many state-based actors who have those capabilities.”

Peter Jennings, executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank, said only

China had the capability and interest in launching such a massive cyber offensive, adding that he was “absolutely certain that China is behind it”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian dismissed the claims as “totally baseless nonsense”, saying Beijing has “been opposing and combating all types of cyber attacks”.