On the one hand, that’s a pity. The 2016 effort, developed by the Prime Minister’s department, had created initiatives that were yielding genuine success, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's ambassador for Cyber Affairs and AustCyber's industry growth network. There’s a missed opportunity to build on those, or at least to learn from the lessons from 2016.
The Australian economy will bear the friction associated with diminished trust and reliability.
On the other hand, it’s deeply concerning. Cyber security is indeed a growing issue: it is the dark side of digitalisation. Even in a non-COVID-19 world, our dependence on digital technologies was going to grow; now, the disruptive forces of pandemic, digitalisation and cyber converge. Because getting cyber security right is an enabler, it cannot be treated simply as a threat only the national security apparatus can manage.
We all benefit from a clear, coherent and effective strategy. And we all suffer without one. Individuals and particularly smaller companies, those with the fewer resources and capabilities to look after themselves but who will be increasingly exposed, will bear increased risks and cost. The Australian economy will bear the friction associated with diminished trust and reliability. National resilience will decrease and sovereignty will continue to erode. And Australia’s position geopolitically will be increasingly precarious.
That’s because cyber security isn’t something separate and distinct from the material world. If we do face a bleaker, poorer future, the cyber world will both reflect and amplify that condition.
Openness and resilience
Given such an outlook, guaranteeing increased safety for Australians online would be foolhardy. Indeed, we may have already reached "peak internet" in terms of security online. The trends – hastened by the pandemic – suggest fewer resources able to be devoted to basic maintenance, upgrades and to security, across the economy, and globally.
More, what we continue to think of as ordinary, social, civilian technologies will continue to be co-opted for the purpose of geopolitics and crime. Without addressing the relationship between government and citizen openly – our rights and responsibilities, and the sort of society we want – we risk sleepwalking into creeping techno-authoritarianism.
That’s why the organising principle – the "why" of those hard decisions a strategy is supposed to facilitate – is important. To that end, it’s worth reading another chapter (Chapter 9, "From Primacy to Openness" by Mira Rapp-Hooper), of the Aspen Institute report, The Struggle for Power, quoted by the Prime Minister on August 5.
Adopting openness as a strategic objective, rather than "barring doors and shutting windows", would prioritise issues of sovereignty, resilience and trust, help build soft power and shore up hard power.
For example, the government could build on the success of AustCyber to boost sovereign capability, critical to Australian positioning in a world of technological competition and hard power. That would help lessen Australia’s vulnerabilities, including to the whim and the business models of foreign interests.
Further, rather than overpromising security for all, it may be better to prioritise societal resilience. Government could then focus scarce resources on the public good of securing a national network layer, for example, while encouraging community innovation, protection and support for individuals and companies.
Building trust should be an explicit goal in any strategy that so affects our daily lives and business – and it is why any strategy on cyber written primarily through the lens of national security will fall short.
While it does address some known issues, such as staffing in the Signals Directorate, the Cyber Security Strategy 2020 doesn’t hit the mark of good strategy. Australians are owed the informed debate, intellectual effort and hard decisions needed to craft such strategy for their future in dark times.
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August 10, 2020 at 09:00PM
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We have no strategy for tackling the dark side of digital - The Australian Financial Review
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