Quiet signal
Cybersecurity is an increasingly important priority for corporate Australia. So it was surprising that today's announcement of our new top cyber spy came with little fanfare.
Cybersecurity has never been more important for corporate Australia, with executives and boards all around the country under pressure to improve their resilience to cyberattacks. Yet the appointment of the nation’s new top cyber spy, revealed by Capital Brief last week, was met with surprisingly little fanfare when announced on Monday.
Neither Anthony Albanese nor Defence Minister Richard Marles held a press conference to unveil Abigail Bradshaw as the new director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate. The new Minister for Cybersecurity, Tony Burke, was left off the media release announcing the appointment.
While former Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil raised the profile of cyber following the hacks on Optus and Medibank, the Albanese government doesn’t appear to want to talk about it much anymore.
This is despite the government preparing to legislate a suite of new laws in response to the 2023-2030 Cybersecurity Strategy. These include giving the ASD new “last resort” powers to forcibly take over critical infrastructure in the wake of major cyber attacks, creating a new Cybersecurity Act, and introducing a mandatory reporting regime for ransom payments.
