Tax Commissioner urges Govt to bolster cyber defences
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The news: Outgoing Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan says the one thing that “keeps me awake at night” is cybercrime, urging the government to continually bolster Australia’s online defences.
The numbers: Speaking at the National Press Club today, Jordan said the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) deals with 4.7 million attempted cyberattacks each month. It holds 50 petabytes of data, which he equated to one billion tall filing cabinets.
The context: Jordan is leaving the ATO after 11 years in the role and said the ATO works with Australian agencies and their overseas counterparts to combat international cyber crime.
What they said: “I've been asked many times what keeps me awake at night? My response has always been: cyber security," Jordan said.
"Criminals couldn't fill out the forms to create the new super funds quick enough, so they devised a bot to do that work for them. Now, this is scary stuff. These are things that we really have to keep on top of.”
