CERT Australia seeks vendor-neutral cyber threat data

CERT Australia will fund the University of Canberra's Centre for Internet Safety to undertake an annual survey of cyber threats experienced by a sample of 500 Australian companies.

Close up of someone completing a questionnaire.

Attorney General Nicola Roxon said the survey would provide “a better picture” of how cyber incidents affect business and the Australian economy. 

The centre's director Nigel Phair said that while many IT security firms offered similar threat surveys, it was unclear how they came up with their figures.

“This project is trying to generate an evidence base [and] a neutral dataset on the state of play in Australia today," he said.

“The value of the survey will be that it will establish longitudinal trends.”

Phair declined to discuss the cost of performing the survey but confirmed CERT Australia will fund the project.

The survey is expected to take up to three months to complete. It will be conducted anonymously online.

Some questions will draw on similar surveys overseas. It will include questions such as whether an organisation had been attacked, whether it was insider- or externally-created, and the harm done.

Phair said he was wary about attaching dollar figures to the amount of harm done. “[Those figures] can often be pulled out of the ether," he said.