(This Sept. 1 story corrects identity of Australian company impacted by cyber attack in paragraph 5)
By Colin Packham
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will embed intelligence officers in some private companies, the head of the country’s chief cyber intelligence agency said on Tuesday, as Canberra seeks to strengthen its defenses after a spate of attacks on critical infrastructure.
Citing estimates that cyber attacks on businesses and households are costing about A$29 billion ($21.5 billion) or 1.5% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, Australia said last month it would spend A$1.66 billion over the next 10 years to strengthen companies’ cyber defenses.
“We already started to partner with a number of companies and actually agreeing to embed each other’s staff, so that we better understand what we have in terms of a threat picture,” Rachel Noble, head of the head of Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) – the country’s cyber intelligence agency – said in a rare public speech in Canberra.
Noble did not name the companies, but described them as “crucial private sector companies”.
Australia’s drive to strengthen cyber defenses comes amid a spate of cyber attacks this year, whose targets have included Bluescope Steel and Lion Co — the Kirin-owned Australian brewer.
The corporate attacks follow Australia’s most high-profile cyber-attack, a 2019 hack of Australia’s parliament and three largest political parties.
Reuters reported late last year that Australia determined China was responsible for the attack, though Beijing denies it.
(Reporting by Colin Packham. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
