Last month, SecureWorld News covered Australia's run-in with a major nation-state cyberattack.
"This activity is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers, and operators of other critical infrastructure."
Australia was quick to take action to mitigate the initial attack, publishing advisories, notifying potential targets, and briefing states and territories on risks and mitigation techniques.
Now, Australia is taking matters a step further by pledging $1.35 billion for cybersecurity.
Australia cybersecurity investment: the breakdown
It's often said necessity is the mother of invention. Necessity also helps to get things funded.
Only a week after Australia's major cyber incident from a state-based actor, its federal government announced the decision to spend more than a billion dollars over the next 10 years to boost Australia's cyber defenses.
What will the money go toward? The government has a few avenues in mind:
- Disrupting offshore cybercrime
- Intelligence sharing between government and industry
- New research labs
- More than 500 "cyber spy" jobs
Here's how Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the new funding:
"This… will mean that we can identify more cyber threats, disrupt more foreign cyber criminals, build more partnerships with industry and government and protect more Australians."
The money also will go to shore up deficiencies in Australia's cyber defenses, as the country has experienced several advanced persistent threats in recent years.
But the biggest slice of the billion-dollar pie? Jobs.
Australia is using $470 million of the pledged funds to promote the cybersecurity workforce.
We don't know exactly how cybersecurity will grow and change over the next 10 years. But in Australia, we know it is definitely growing by at least $1.3 billion.
