Defence is set to brush up on ICT security skills, signalling intentions to provide all personnel with additional training on technology-related risk.
According to Defence documents, the ICT Security Awareness Training project will help meet requirements to develop a strong security culture and make personnel aware of security threats and their responsibilities.
“This project will contribute to Defence and Government security by supporting strategies to raise security awareness, establish a strong security culture and improve security management,” the documents read.
Under the project, a survey of existing ICT security awareness training procedures, to be made available shortly by the Defence Security Authority (DSA), and any other security awareness training shortfalls will be conducted. Based on this survey, a list of topics and training modules will be created, which will allow Defence to prioritise and choose those topics and modules that need to be made available to Defence personnel.
A Defence contractor will then develop training packages identified by Defence and deliver them via computer-based training, posters and/or pamphlets and narratives to be used by Defence for face-to-face training.
The project follows the release of a report by the Kokoda Foundation into the state of ICT security in Australia late last week.
The report praised Federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, for his groundwork in creating such bodies as the Cyber Security Operations Centre and the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). But the report said much more was needed.
"The gap between threat and response capabilities is growing," the report warns. "If we do not increase our focus on cyberspace, the threat will grow faster than our response and the cost of addressing the growing threat in the future will increase, possibly exponentially."
Australia and the UK in January committed to furthering cyber security between the two countries under the existing Australia-UK Ministerial (AUKMIN) consultations currently underway.
In a joint communiqué, the two nations said they would work together in “concrete and practical ways” to shape a more secure environment and advance common interests in the area of cyber security.
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