Australia\u2019s peak cyber security body has warned that organisations are underestimating the scale and urgency of the transition to post-quantum cyber security, as advances in quantum computing threaten to undermine existing encryption systems in the next four years.<\/p>\n
Speaking at CyberConnect Canberra, the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) said governments, critical infrastructure operators, and major enterprises needed to begin planning immediately for the migration to quantum-resistant security systems.<\/p>\n
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The warning comes amid escalating cyber threats across Australia. According to the latest Annual Cyber Threat Report from the Australian Signals Directorate, more than 87,400 cybercrime reports were made during the last financial year \u2013 equivalent to one report every six minutes.<\/p>\n
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Rajiv Shah, AISA board member and a PhD-qualified quantum physicist, said many organisations still lacked visibility into the systems and data that would need to be upgraded to withstand future quantum attacks.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Australian Cyber Security Centre has recommended that organisations should have developed such a plan by the end of 2026 \u2013 less than seven months away,\u201d Shah said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe problem is that, as we see from many recent cyber incidents, organisations often do not have a good understanding of their IT assets and their data. Identifying what needs upgrading to be quantum-resistant, making that plan and implementing it, is likely to take much longer than they anticipate.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Shah said the migration challenge extended beyond simply applying software updates, particularly for governments and operators managing legacy operational technology systems and unsupported infrastructure.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThey might think they just need to apply the upgrades from their vendors, but we already see that governments and operational technology systems struggle to keep their software up to date,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThen there is the problem of systems which are no longer supported, or which can\u2019t physically be upgraded. How will you decide what to do about those?\u201d<\/p>\n
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AISA said quantum computing represented a long-term strategic cyber security challenge that would require years of coordinated planning, investment, and risk management across both government and industry.<\/p>\n
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While experts do not expect a single moment where all existing encryption suddenly becomes obsolete, Shah warned that organisations needed to prepare now for a gradual increase in cyber risk as quantum computing capabilities mature.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe Australian Government may want to consider how to encourage organisations to take the threat seriously while avoiding knee-jerk reactions or compliance directives that could create unwelcome consequences,\u201d Shah said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cRushed or botched implementations that make systems more complex may actually make them less secure. Cyber security is about doing the hard work, identifying and prioritising risks, not just ticking boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s peak cyber security body has warned that organisations are underestimating the scale and urgency of the transition…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-699568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}