In Australia, the threat of espionage and external intervention is growing, reaching previously unprecedented scales. About this warns Mike Berges, General Director of the Australian Intelligence and Security Service (ASIO) . He expressed his concern about the fact that more and more Australians become goals for this kind of threats.
Bergess emphasized that danger is real and much more extensive than it might seem at first glance. According to him, “in a specific foreign intelligence service there is a special team that pays the priority attention of Australia.” He called this group “A-team” (probably this is its code name).
According to Bergess, it was this group that successfully recruited the former Australian politician in the past, who betrayed the interests of his country, party and colleagues, promoting the interests of a foreign regime.
Bergess also revealed cases when the leading Australian academicians and political figures were invited to paid conferences abroad, which were only covered for recruitment by foreign spies. In some cases, agents were openly interested in which of the participants had access to government documents.
Bergeses expressed concern about the threat emanating from cyberspace, indicating the activity of a foreign state engaged in reconnaissance of critical infrastructure of Australia, including water supply, transport and energy networks.
Australian intelligence general called both employees of state institutions and ordinary citizens – to develop a security culture in itself, emphasizing the importance of cooperation between the country’s population with law enforcement agencies to ensure national security.
Although the state that the threat comes from was not called Bergess directly, according to its description, we can assume that we are talking about China, and the “A-team” means a hacker group of Volt Typhoon, which has made noise in recent months.
This group has caused an alarm at the highest level of government over the past year. Bergess emphasized that the paramount goal of such actions is not spying in itself – the attackers are concentrated on obtaining an undetected access that can be used for sabotage in the future.
Bergesse urged the Australians more serious about security issues and report any suspicious contacts, emphasizing that this threat is required by joint efforts of the whole nation.