GOVERNMENT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY — CYBER ATTACKS
1034. Hon TJORN SIBMA to the Minister for Innovation and ICT:
I refer to the state government's
cybersecurity policies and capability in the wake of cyber attacks on Optus and
Medibank. What is the state government doing to maintain the integrity of its
own systems and to protect the data, including the private details of Western Australian
residents, it collects?
Hon
STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the
honourable member for some notice of the question.
The state government has taken a number
of steps to improve the capability and capacity of the Western Australian
public sector to maintain the integrity of its systems and to protect its data,
including but not limited to developing and
implementing the WA government's cybersecurity policy, which sets out
clear obligations for WA public sector entities, as well as the
requirement to periodically report on the progress being made by agencies to
implement the policy; the establishment of the WA government's Cyber
Security Operations Centre to detect, protect and respond to cyberthreats
across the public sector; the establishment of the WA government's
cybersecurity incident response coordination framework to ensure that the
public sector can appropriately respond to cyber incidents; allocating additional resources to the Office of Digital
Government to deliver cybersecurity uplift initiatives, including providing
technical cybersecurity services to WA public sector entities and facilitating
cybersecurity awareness training; working in an effective partnership with
commonwealth government agencies as part of the WA government's active
participation in national cybersecurity incident response arrangements;
implementing the WA government information classification policy, which
requires WA public sector entities to identify risks and apply appropriate controls to protect, store and share their
information assets; and contributing funding to the Cyber Security Cooperative
Research Centre at Edith Cowan University to develop innovative approaches to
counter emerging cyberthreats.