Australian intelligence agencies are warning that foreign nations are likely to increase their attempts to sabotage the country’s critical infrastructure.

On February 19, Mike Burgess, the director-general of security at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), presented an annual threat assessment that covered the various national security threats facing Australia.

The report highlighted several key threats

, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled disinformation and deepfakes, military espionage, and attacks on critical infrastructure that could harm the military, government, and social cohesion.

“The ASIO report reflects a increasingly confrontational international relations environment, increasing competition between major powers, and Australia’s position in this context — which is both strategically critical and geographically vulnerable,” according to Casey Ellis, founder of Bugcrowd.
“Critical infrastructure is the primary target of nation-states in the cyber domain. In the past year, 11% of cybersecurity incidents in Australia have focused on critical infrastructure, with growing evidence of adversaries positioning themselves for opportunistic strikes in a way that mirrors tactics observed in the US.”

Threats to Australia’s Military and Civilians

This is the sixth threat assessment Burgess has made since taking office in 2019, and he described it as the most significant and serious to date.

Regarding cyber threats, Burgess highlighted several areas of concern, including the power that AI gives to malicious governments and criminal threat actors.

“Artificial intelligence will enable disinformation and deepfakes that can promote false narratives, undermine factual information, and erode trust in institutions,” he explained.
“Espionage and foreign interference will be enabled by advances in technology, particularly artificial intelligence and

deeper online pools of personal data vulnerable to collection, exploitation, and analysis

by foreign intelligence services.”

The use of AI has been a growing concern in terms of data collection for several years, with major tech companies training their models on unauthorized data from the web, a practice that has become increasingly worrying.
This is particularly concerning given that the latest chatbot

comes from an authoritarian state

.

Burgess also discussed the increased threats to Australia’s military, stating that “Defence personnel are being targeted in person and online.
Some were recently given gifts by international counterparts that contained concealed surveillance devices,” he said.
He also described the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK, and the US (AUKUS) as “a priority target for intelligence collection, including by countries we consider friendly.

Foreign Nations Eye AUS Critical Infrastructure

According to the ASIO assessment, “authoritarian regimes are becoming more willing to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure to impede decision-making, damage war-fighting capabilities, and sow social discord.”

Burgess cited

Russia’s war in Ukraine

as an example of how governments can sabotage critical infrastructure, causing both physical and cyber consequences.

“Cyber units from at least one nation-state routinely try to explore and exploit Australia’s critical infrastructure networks, almost certainly mapping systems so they can lay down malware or maintain access in the future,” Burgess said.
“We recently discovered one of those units targeting critical networks in the US.
ASIO worked closely with our American counterpart to evict the hackers and shut down their global accesses, including nodes here in Australia.”

Burgess warned that even in times of peace, “foreign regimes are expected to become more determined to, and more capable of, pre-positioning cyber access vectors they can exploit in the future.”