Gov to set up national office for cyber security

The government will set up a new national office for cyber security within Home Affairs as soon as next month, and start consulting on a new seven-year cyber security strategy later today.

Speaking on the ABC’s AM radio program, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the office would be led by a new senior official with the title of coordinator for cyber security.

Recruitment for the role is underway and an appointment could be made as soon as next month.

“[There’s] two really important tasks for this person,” O’Neil said.

“The first will be to try to provide some strategy and structure and spine to the work being done across government, so it will mean things like making sure that the billions of dollars that we are investing in cyber security each year are being spent in a way that’s strategic and appropriate, that we've got different parts of government communicating with each other and working together on helping lift cyber security protections across the country. 

“The other really important part of this person's job will be to help manage cyber incidents in a proper, seamless, strategic way across the Australian government.”

Following a roundtable with “business, security and tech leaders” later today, the government will also open a consultation on the next national cyber security strategy.

“The Australian government is coordinating a huge cyber uplift that's been occuring now for eight months,” O’Neil said.

“We want Australia to be the most cyber secure country in the world by 2030 and the cyber strategy is the main mechanism that will get us there. 

“So today, the discussion paper [will ask] a bunch of questions about how we can be the most cyber secure country in the world by 2030 - and one of those is about how we can work with business to make sure that they are lifting cyber security standards in partnership with government.”

O’Neil outlined her 2030 vision for cyber security at a speech at the end of last year.

iTnews will cover more on the discussion paper once it is publicly released.