Govt backs cyber skills push into Pacific


Joseph Brookes
Senior Reporter

Australian cyber skills will be deployed in a two month blitz across Papua New Guinea and Fiji in the federal government’s latest effort to build resilience across the Pacific with university and global organisations.

Cyber not-for-profit AUSCERT and the University of Queensland where it is based on Monday announced they will join international cyber-support service IDCARE to aid small businesses and individuals in the two nations while developing long-term options.

The cohort has secured support for the work from the Cyber and Critical Tech Co-operation Program that has run since 2016 to improve cyber resilience in across the Indo-Pacific

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A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade contract will be enough to get the Australian experts to Papua New Guinea and Fiji and begin providing direct support and workshops on cyber-crime and online scam response over two months.

The group is aiming to understand local requirements to tailor the cyber support and explore future delivery models for developing local capabilities and expanding to other Pacific nations.

“Overall, we will be exporting Australia’s best practices for responding to escalating threat levels and working to strengthen local Indo-Pacific cyber resilience,” University of Queensland Cyber Research Centre Professor Ryan Ko said.

AUSCERT, Australia’s first computer emergency response team (CERT) and one of the oldest CERTs in the world. It was founded in 1993 in response to an Australian university student hacking a computer system at NASA that triggered scrutiny of information security

The not-for-profit group counts many government agencies as paying members. It will partner with fellow not-for-profit cyber support service IDCARE and the University of Queensland on the project.

“We know scams and cybercrime are impacting our Pacific neighbours and, as they continue move to an online environment with banking services and shopping, we expect this to increase significantly,” IDCARE founder and managing director, Dr David Lacey said.

The work aligns with the current national cybersecurity strategy which rolled regional cyber efforts into the single plan last year while aiming to make Australia a partner of choice for other nations.

The new strategy continued the Cyber and Critical Tech Cooperation Program, which was established in 2016 and this year offered up to $200,000 for research institutions, universities, government agencies, NGOs or international organisations.

The Pacific has become an increasingly important cyber battleground for successive Australian governments, which have also funded local infrastructure work on mobile networks, a trans-Pacific subsea cable and most recently digital ID.

Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.

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