Australian government departments are dramatically under-investing in their own cyber security, to the point where they could be making themselves easy targets for criminal and state-based hackers, a report has found. Compared to private enterprise, government departments are investing less than half the money per employee on securing their technology and data, and would do well to "clean up their own house" before they start imposing tough new cyber-security requirements on the private sector, the report's author said.
Government departments seemed to have missed Prime Minister Scott Morrison's warning about cyber attacks from state-based actors. Illustration: John Shakespeare
The report, based on a survey of many of Australia's top Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), found that government departments were spending an average of $1388 per employee on cyber security, compared to an average spend of $2799 across all sectors including government...MORE
