Taskforce proposes cybersecurity charter

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Cyber Resilience Taskforce is exploring a series of initiatives aimed at improving cyber resilience and incident response, including drawing up a ‘cybersecurity charter’ defining cybersecurity service standards.

The proposed charter would be modelled on a digital service standard and define a set of principles that organisations can use to measure whether cybersecurity projects and systems are achieving optimal outcomes.

At a workshop to discuss what such a standard would look like, there was strong debate over contentious issues including the elements covered by the concept of cybersecurity and what resilience means in a security context.

But there was consensus that such a standard should be designed to be citizen-centric and should coordinate information, advice and capability from across the public and private sectors.

The taskforce also recently held a Telephone Scam Working Group, identifying six key measures to better protect Australians against internet scams, and has been working to improve cyber incident communications guidelines and exploring technology platforms for delivering instant alerts. The next taskforce meeting will focus on addressing Australia’s cybersecurity skills shortage.

Meanwhile, the government is strengthening its international commitment to improving cybersecurity.

At the seventh Trilateral Strategic Dialogue between Australia, Japan and the US, each government committed to supporting the strategic framework for international cyber stability based on the application of existing international law, and to implement coordinated cybersecurity capacity-building programs.

The governments also agreed to follow non-binding guidelines for responsible state behaviour online in peacetime.

Likewise, Australia and the UK recently made a joint statement on cyber cooperation, committing to promoting “an international stability framework for cyberspace” through existing international law.

According to the statement, “Australia and the UK will cooperate to deter, mitigate and attribute malicious cyber attacks by criminals, state actors and their proxies, including those that seek to interfere in the internal democratic processes of states.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Leo Lintang