Peter Dutton touts new cybersecurity powers being considered to protect banking network, power grid

Krusty · May 29, 2018

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says the Government is actively considering the domestic use of the highly secretive cybersecurity agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), to protect critical infrastructure as well as counter cybercrime.

Earlier this month, the Government flatly denied reports that ASD — which operates as part of the Defence Department and primarily eavesdrops overseas — was going to be handed new powers to spy on Australians' electronic data and communications.

It was claimed the Defence and Home Affairs departments had been canvassing changing the law to allow the ASD to access emails, banks records and text messages if their respective ministers gave their approval.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-29/dutton-says-new-cybersecurity-powers-being-considered/9813364

But while the Government insists it does not plan to snoop on Australians, Mr Dutton has told the ABC's 7.30 that the idea of using ASD to protect critical infrastructure like the banking network, electricity grids or even the emergency triple-0 network is being debated.

"We live our lives online now and it's only going to increase obviously," he said.

"If our banking system was attacked by a state actor, say Russia for example, and our banking system was brought to its knees, [that is] we couldn't transact at shops, people couldn't get paid, the transfer system went down for 72 hours, for seven days, the Prime Minister would be saying to me as Home Affairs Minister, 'What are we doing to help the banking sector recover from this cyber attack?'

"If I said, 'Well. the ASD has a capacity to deal with that online, has a cyber capacity that none of our agencies do', I think we would want to look at how we could protect Australians online from cyber attacks from state actors, or from other players, who would seek to do us harm."
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Peter Dutton touts new cybersecurity powers being considered to protect banking network, power grid

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Peter Dutton touts new cybersecurity powers being considered to protect banking network, power grid

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