In short:
A Melbourne University academic says Australia is dependent on US tech companies, including Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
asserted
Australia → say → Microsoft
Another says governments have to make our tech infrastructure as robust as our banking system, through legislation, oversight and regulatory controls.
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infrastructure → say → legislation
A scientist expects more outages and hacks in the years to come.
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scientist → expect → years
Shifting Australia's dependence away from US technology companies towards a more resilient and sovereign digital infrastructure will require significant investments, experts warn.
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experts → shift → investments
The calls for improved "digital resilience" follow widespread, global outages affecting Microsoft platforms, including Outlook, SharePoint and Copilot.
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calls → improve → Outlook
The company posted an update just after 9am (AEST) yesterday saying it had begun a "gradual recovery" of access to its email and other online services.
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it → post → email
An hour later, it posted another update that restored servers were becoming unresponsive again.
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servers → post → update
And as the day unfolded, Microsoft reported the ups and downs of its efforts to restore services.
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Microsoft → unfold → services
University of Melbourne's Andrew Cullen, who specialises in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI), said US tech is integrated throughout Australia's digital infrastructure.
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tech → specialise → infrastructure
Most of our emails come through either Microsoft or Google.
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Most → come → Microsoft
Most of our websites are managed under the hood by Amazon or a few other kind of key cloud providers.
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Most → manage → providers
"So, it's really challenging for us all to kind of have control of our own digital destiny."
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us → have → destiny
University of Melbourne's Toby Murray, who previously worked for the Department of Defence and specialises in cybersecurity, said advice about what organisations should be doing to be more resilient was changing.
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organisations → work → what
"The usual way we set up our organisations, at least in the last 10 to 15 years, has been to move to cloud-based services," Professor Murray said.
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Murray → set → services
"It is a real challenge once you move these systems into the cloud and when we all rely on a very small number of vendors for those cloud services."
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we → move → services
Dr Cullen said organisations had to create plans for outages, because they might not be able to anticipate the source of an outage, but could create contingencies.
uncertain
they → say → contingencies
"So, for businesses, that means having a plan to work out how you run operations if you don't have access to email or access to Teams," he said.
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he → mean → Teams
It's important for governments to play a role in saying we are dependent upon these services.
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we → play → services
They can't be treated as being too big to fail.
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They → treat → ?
"There really needs to be a push to try and make sure that they're as robust as our banking system is through legislation, through oversight and regulatory controls."
Apart from legislation, Professor Murray said government or businesses could create alternatives to the likes of Microsoft to improve resiliency, but moving those services in-house would be more expensive and require significant investment.
uncertain
moving → need → investment
You're then responsible for maintaining them yourself, which brings its own risks and its own costs as well.
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which → maintain → risks
"For many organisations, it's much cheaper, and it's often more secure, to put these services in the cloud.
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it → put → cloud
Instead of having a thousand different small businesses each having to run their own email systems.
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businesses → have → systems
"
More outages and attacks to come
Toby Walsh, the chief scientist at the University of New South Wales AI Institute, said he expects more outages and hacks in the years to come.
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he → come → years
Professor Walsh pointed to the vulnerabilities found within PHP, a programming language used by more than two-thirds of websites, that led to millions of hacking attempts.
"
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that → point → attempts
I hate to be a doom monger, but we're discovering that the foundations of the internet are somewhat shaky.
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foundations → hate → internet
"I'm told that to discover the PHP bug, the prompt was 'find a serious flaw in PHP'.
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prompt → tell → PHP
That's all you had to type into the prompt and let the system run.
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system → have → prompt
So those tools now are available pretty much to anyone," Professor Walsh said.
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Walsh → say → anyone
Last month, hackers launched a "large-scale" attack on French supermarkets, raising refrigerator and freezer temperatures at hundreds of stores to as high as 50 degrees Celsius, causing fires and spoiling food.
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hackers → launch → food
Professor Walsh said our digital systems were critical assets similar to power stations and air traffic control systems.
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systems → say → stations
"When we see fridges in France being disrupted by bad overseas actors we realise that we're going to have to put a lot more care and attention into protecting our digital assets," he said.
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he → see → assets
Dr Cullen said it is important to consider how to improve the resiliency of digital systems, but not everything needed to have online access.
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it → say → access
"Fundamentally, anything that we put on the internet is going to be exposed to hackers and that's going to be a real risk going forward.
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that → put → hackers
"So, while lots of businesses across the economy recently have been putting things on the cloud and kind of moving to more internet-enabled devices, we really should be asking ourselves, 'what things actually do need to be connected to the internet?'
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things → put → internet
"
How France is leading Europe's digital sovereignty push
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France → lead → push
There is scope for Australia to wean itself off its digital dependency on large US tech companies, Dr Cullen said.
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Cullen → be → companies
It just needs to look to France.
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It → need → France
In April, the French government announced it would be moving its operating systems from Microsoft to Linux, a free open-source operating system.
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it → announce → Linux
"The French government is moving as many government services as they can onto homegrown domestic products,"he said.
"
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they → move → products,"he
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
