Thread by @ASIOGovAu

Director-General of Security @MikePBurgess will deliver his fifth Annual Threat Assessment this evening. Follow us as we share highlights from the speech. The full transcript will be available on at the conclusion of the address. asio.gov.au

@MikePBurgess Welcome to ASIO’s 75th year

@MikePBurgess While the terrorism threat level is POSSIBLE, if we had a threat level for espionage and foreign interference it would be at CERTAIN – the highest level on the scale.

Right now there is a particular team in a particular foreign intelligence service with a particular focus on Australia – we are its priority target.

The team is aggressive and experienced; its tradecraft is good – but not good enough. ASIO and our partners have been able to map out its activities and identify its members.

We call them ‘the A-team’ – the Australia team.

The A-team members trawl professional networking sites looking for Australians with access to privileged information, and then use false, anglicised personas to approach their targets.

Most commonly, they offer their targets consulting opportunities, promising to pay thousands of dollars for reports on Australian trade, politics, economics, foreign policy, defence and security. Additional payments can be offered for ‘inside’ or ‘exclusive’ information.

Last year, an Australian I will call Ian received an unsolicited direct message from someone claiming to be Sophy from Data 31. Sophy offered a part-time consulting role, and asked for insights into foreign policy, trade and risk.

Ian replied and expressed interest in the opportunity, asking how it would work and what sort of information Sophy needed.

Sophy’s reply contained multiple red flags… she requested information that is not available online, asked if Ian had contacts in government and suggested he not mention who he’s working for.

Eventually Ian asked, “How much do you pay?”

Sophy hinted that the rewards would be greater for inside information, promised the payments would be very competitive and tried to set up a meeting outside Australia, all expenses paid.

So that’s a real exchange – and I’m sorry to say it did not end well for Ian. Fortunately ASIO became aware of the cultivation and intervened before any secrets were disclosed or any harm was done.

Unfortunately, too many Australians miss the warning signs or make the A-team’s work too easy. On just one professional networking site, there are 14,000 Australians publicly boasting about having a security clearance or working in the intelligence community.

I appreciate that people need to market themselves but please be smart and be discreet – don’t make yourself an easy target.

In one scheme, leading Australian academics and political figures were invited to a conference in an overseas country, with the organisers covering all expenses including airfares.

When the attendees arrived at the conference they were met by individuals claiming to be bureaucrats. In reality, they were spies in disguise, members of the A-team.

A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australia’s national security and defence priorities.

Another Australian, an aspiring politician, provided insights into the factional dynamics of his party, analysis of a recent election and the names of up-and-comers – presumably so the A-team could target them too.

ASIO disrupted this scheme & confronted the Australians involved. While some were unwitting others knew they were working for a foreign intelligence service. We helped the unaware ones extract themselves & severed the links between the others and the foreign intelligence service.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m giving you this amount of detail. I’ve declassified the case for two reasons. First – awareness. Australians need to understand what the threat looks like so they can avoid it and report it.

The second reason is more complicated. We decided to confront the A-team and then speak about it publicly as part of a real-world, real-time disruption. We want the A-team to know its cover is blown. We want the A-team’s bosses to know its cover is blown.

I want the A-team and its masters to understand if they target Australia, ASIO will target them; we will make their jobs as difficult, costly and painful as possible.

This is what we call an intelligence-led disruption.

This is one reason why I get frustrated by suggestions that convictions are the only weapon in our collective arsenal or the only measure of our success.

We can conduct overt interviews, putting the agents on notice that we know what they are up to – and that they will not have free rein here.

We can, as we have done with the A-team, issue a notice across the Australian Public service to warn about a particular threat.

And sometimes we use public statements, such as my speech today, to shine a disinfecting light on the tactics our adversaries use, so potential targets are better able to identify and resist overtures.

It is not ASIO's job to study problems – our job is to stop them.

The Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce is particularly adept at using intelligence-led disruptions to stop attempts to monitor and harass members of Australia’s diaspora communities.

Since it was stood up in mid-2020, the Taskforce has conducted more than 120 operations to mitigate threats against our communities, political systems and classified information.

Successful disruptions have increased by 265 per cent, and continue to increase exponentially.

Last year, for example, the Taskforce uncovered and disrupted an individual working on behalf of a foreign government who wanted to physically harm an Australia-based critic of the regime.

The individual tried to identify his target’s home address and bank details, hired a subcontractor to take photos of the house and even asked how much money would be required to get the subcontractor to quote “take severe action” against the dissident.

There aren’t a lot of things that terrorists & spies have in common, but sabotage is one of them. ASIO is seeing both cohorts talking about sabotage, researching sabotage, sometimes conducting reconnaissance for sabotage but I stress not planning to conduct sabotage at this time.

The most immediate, low cost and potentially high-impact vector for sabotage is cyber.

ASIO is aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks.

The reconnaissance is highly sophisticated, using top-notch tradecraft to map networks, test for vulnerabilities, knock on digital doors and check the digital locks.

Last year, in an event unrelated to sabotage, one telecommunications network went down for less than one day. The cascading effects were more significant and widespread than most people would have expected.

Imagine the implications if a nation state took down all the networks? Or turned off the power during a heatwave?

I assure you, these are not hypotheticals – foreign governments have crack cyber teams investigating these possibilities right now, although they are only likely to materialise during a conflict or near conflict.

Over the last 18 months, we’ve also seen an uptick in the number of nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, both here and overseas.

It’s a sobering reminder that terrorism remains a threat – a real threat, a pervasive threat – even with a lower national threat level.

Security agencies such as ASIO face a potentially deadly dilemma: the threat environment demands we dedicate more resources to countering espionage and foreign interference, but we must simultaneously maintain a robust counter-terrorism capability. Lives depend on it.

The scale and sophistication of the threats facing Australia demands an equally scaled and sophisticated response. BAU just won’t do.

At the same time, there’s no place for what I call ‘security insecurity’. Please don’t think you are defenceless or resistance is futile. The threats facing our nation are serious, but not insurmountable.

Our adversaries are sophisticated, but not unstoppable. Good security is achievable. Good security works. Even simple steps can make a major difference.

So what does good security look like? In my opinion, it needs to be three dimensional: vertical, horizontal and temporal.

The first dimension is vertical. Build security into the foundations of your enterprise – from the ground up, not merely added on at the end, like an antenna on a roof.

That brings me to the second dimension – horizontal. Good security should reach across all elements of your organisation: people, places, technology, information.

The third dimension is temporal. Good security cannot be a point in time; it’s an enduring responsibility. As I’ve explained, threats, circumstances, technologies and people all change. We must constantly reconsider and recalibrate our defences.

The three dimensions of security reflect an organisation’s security culture. Your security culture is ‘how you do security’ – the security-related values, mindsets and behaviours that are normalised within a workplace.

It’s how security is managed on a day‑to‑day basis, including when no one is looking. It’s the glue that makes sound security judgement and behaviours stick.

We all understand the impact and horror of terrorism – it is visible, physical, tangible.

Espionage and foreign interference is, by definition, clandestine. And its most severe impacts are cumulative. But just because you cannot always see it does not make it less real or less serious or less pervasive.

It undermines our freedoms. It degrades our decision-making and strategic advantage. It truly is a threat to our way of life.

Having business as usual security measures in place is good, but not good enough for this threat environment. BAU just won’t do.

Your defences will only be fully effective if they are three dimensional – people need to know about them, people need to use them and people need to update them.

Threats are not simple; threats are not static. Our adversaries are proficient, persistent and patient. But working together we can make a difference. We can make Australia a less permissive environment

At the outset of this address, I noted how the 75 years have been characterised by churn and change. Speaking to those who worked for us at the height of the cold war, I’m also struck by what is unchanged – ASIO’s mission and how connected our staff are to it.

Les Scott was one of the founding officers. He spent 38 years at ASIO. Whether conducting surveillance work during the Petrov defection or assisting the Royal Commission into Espionage, Les served his country with dedication and distinction.

He sadly passed away last year, but spoke to my officers in 2021 about his ASIO career.

“I feel very satisfied to think that I’ve worked with and learned from such fine people.” Les said. “You can’t have anything more important than defending the Commonwealth. The security defence of the Commonwealth and the protection of the rights of the individual are paramount.”

Those words apply as much today as they did in 1949. If they resonate with you, and you want a job that makes a difference, then take a look at our career opportunities.

If you do not want to work for us, please work with us. Take security more seriously. Move beyond BAU. Adopt three-dimensional security. Develop a robust security culture. Do not make yourself an easy target. Report suspicious approaches.

This is a national challenge that needs a national team to meet it. Every Australian can help keep Australia safe.

For our part, ASIO will continue to work 24/7 to protect Australia and Australians. We will keep doing what we were founded to do.

Read the full speech here: asio.gov.au/director-gener…