Cyber Security Assignment: Australian Legal Framework For Online Threats
Question
Task: Prepare a cyber security assignment answering whether the Australian legal frameworks are capable of dealing with security threats.
Answer
Introductionto the theme of cyber security assignment
In the current digital environment, cyberspace could be considered as broadly increasing space that is also more prone to cybercrimes concerning cyber theft and breaches or loss of information. In this aspect, several laws and regulations related to the data security have been introduced by the government of Australia, so that security threat aroused because of cybercrime could be minimized. In an assertion of this, the present study developed in this cyber security assignment is based on whether the legal framework is capable of dealing with security threats. For analysis of this, the study highlights Australian cybercrime securities, guidelines, legal, legislative and regulatory framework within the country.
Main Analysis
In every day of life, vulnerabilities in the online environment could be found. Cyber security consists of prevention of technological exploitation of such risk and navigating the trouble of such activities taking place. The range of the cyber threat is broad and generated from several sources. A cyber security threat is referred to as a malicious act that assists towards damages of data, stealing of information, and disruption of digital life. In the current environment, business organizations are facing several security threats because of technological advancement. In this aspect, cyber-attacks consist of threats such as a virus in the computer system, breaches of data, and Denial of service attack. At present, security threats are almost exclusively applied to describe information security aspects. It can be said that dealing with cyber risk is not an easy task. Cyber-attack could assist towards electrical blackouts, violation of national confidential information, and failure of military equipment. In addition to this, such attacks could also cause the cyber-attack could disrupt theft of valuable and sensitive information and phone or computer system.As per the Australian Cyber Security Centre of government, some of the threats concerningcyber security of Australia included cyber spying the collects intelligence in providing help of activities that are sponsored at the state level, cyber-attack that intends to harm critical infrastructure, and criminal applying online environment to steal the identity of an individual. To reduce security threats,the government of Australia is taking such an aspect more seriously but it appears to be shifting too slowly to remove them.
Legal framework for cyber security threats
Although in Australia, much of digital infrastructure is possessed by the private sector;cyber security is a divided obligation between government, individuals, and private organizations. The governmental authorities of the country are committed to driving national cyber partnership efforts of the country to reduce cyber security threat and to mitigate any risk of national security of Australia that assists from major scale complicated cyber threats (Lal, Taleb, and Dutta, 2017).
According to the research on cyber security assignment, in the year 2016, the cyber securitystrategy has been released by the Australian government to secure affluence in an interconnected world. These consist of national cyber partnership, a cyber-smart nation, growth and innovation, more robust cyber defence, and some other aspects. The recent review in the relation of cyber security, it has been found by the government that within two years, the nation has made significant progress in consideration of mitigation of security threats. The comprehensive approach applied by the government would be beneficial for the whole economy (Crossler, Bélanger, and Ormond, 2019). Notably, it has also ascertained that as the economies become more associated, online security becomes an important aspect.
Government of the country also introduced various laws and regulations concerning the cyber security such as Privacy Act, The Crimes Act, The Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, The Criminal Code 1995, and The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. In this aspect, Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 has been introduced in the year 2018, guided towards the management of national security threats that aroused because of sabotage, espionage, and fraudulent activities posed by overseas organizations. The cited Act was applied as an answer to the technical variations that have enhanced cyber connectivity to the critical infrastructure (Ghafir, et al. 2018). It has been considered by the government of Australia, the duty for confirming the continuity of operations and provision of necessary services of the country and society as being shared among the owner, state government, operators of critical infrastructure, and the governmental authorities.
The government of the country also established online reporting network concerning the consumer intelligence to report as well as any threat that createsan impact on the Australians. ACORN is an agency that provides countrywide plans to contest cybercrimes. It can be said that such agency acts as an online facility to individuals and business organization so that they could online report concerning security threat in a confidential manner. Along with this, the Australian Cyber Security Centre also explains several frameworks and directionsconcerning the protection of assets of the organization to mitigate risk and threats (Roman, Lopez, and Mambo, 2018). It provides enterprise risk management system to the industries and personal-public hub for sharing of information. It also responds on cyber threats to computer Agency and Response Team. It has been found that such a department is work in the together manner with the governmental authorities, industries, and people of Australia to enhance awareness regarding cyber-crime to the maximum extent. It usually workscollectivelywith the division of home affairs whenever finding out any new regulation or policy is contrary to the cyber-crime (Hassija et.al 2019).
In assertion to the above aspect, some of the laws that are related tocyber security threats are explained as below within this cyber security assignment–
Australian Privacy Principles: It is considered as part of changes to privacy Act 1983, which creates a set of such principles used for the federal government and private sectors that have turnover more than $3 million. In Australia, several states introduced their data security Acts for private and government organizations such as Privacy and Data Protection Act 1998 in New South Wales, Information privacy Act 2014- Australian Capital Territory, and like.
Cyber-crime Act: This law covers the offences related to computer and internal aspects such as unauthorized or impeding access to the computer system, fraud concerning computer, cyberstalking, and others. It can be stated that it is connected with the integrity and reliability of communication that took place in an electronic manner or storage of data electronically. This Act was amended in the year 2013 and set up a framework for Australian access with Europe Conventionconcerning cybercrime that is engaged in work in collaboration with mutual help in a criminal matter, offences of cybercrime bill, modification in confidential data, and many forth.
SPAM Act 2003: The main objective of the cited Act is to regulate business emails and some other type of electronic messages that limits messages which are not authorized. This Act is governed by Australian Communication and Media Authorities (Key elements of the Spam Act, 2020).
Telecommunication Act 1997: The primary purpose of this Act mentioned in the cyber security assignment is to safeguard the privacy of a person who makes use of a telecommunication system of Australia connected to real-time communication. This Act was amended to another law in the year 2015 by which several agencies are permitted to access real-time traffic after obtaining a warrant from the court(Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), 2020).
Along with the above aspects, specifiedguidelines also issued by the government of Australia to provide consumer protection in a better manner and reduce the risk of threats. In this aspect, some guidelines for the banking industries have been provided by the government. Moreover, guidelines are also issued for utilities, federal agencies and providers of internet services, so that cyber security threat could be minimized (Liu et al. 2018).
Based on the above aspects, it can be asserted that the Australian government has implemented several legal frameworksconcerning cyber-security threats. Still, it is not capableof mitigating such risk in full extent (Butt et al. 2019). The recent report provided by the Australian Cyber Security Centre, it was held that Australian citizens are continuously targeted by cybercrimes by an extent of Covid-19 themed scams, the attempt of fraud, and fraudulent mail schemes. The ACSC has obtained more than 95 reports concerning the cybercrimes that shows people losing money or private information through online fraud (Covid-19 cyber scams mount against Australian, 2020). Moreover, it has also identified fraudulent foreign cyber actors applying their techniques and balancing their malicious activities within some days of the announcements made by the government like relief payment or public health directions. Based on this, there is still a requirement of improvisation regarding minimization of security threat in Australia.
Conclusion
The analysis above done in this cyber security assignment suggests that, in the present era, cybercrime or security threat is increasing day by day. Although the government of Australia has implemented several rules and regulations to the protection of consumer from data breaches or fraudulent activities, its efforts seem to be very slow. It can be observed that, in the recent era of Covid-19 pandemic, there are several fraudulent activities taking place, which reflects the ineffectiveness of legal framework of Australia in connection to the security threat. Thus, there is a requirement for improvisation in the legal framework of Australia concerningthe minimization of security threats.
References
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Crossler, R.E., Bélanger, F. and Ormond, D., 2019. The quest for complete security: An empirical analysis of users’ multi-layered protection from security threats. Information Systems Frontiers, pp.1-15.
Ghafir, I., Saleem, J., Hammoudeh, M., Faour, H., Prenosil, V., Jaf, S., Jabbar, S. and Baker, T., 2018. Security threats to critical infrastructure: the human factor. Cyber security assignmentThe Journal of Supercomputing, 74(10), pp.4986-5002.
Hassija, V., Chamola, V., Saxena, V., Jain, D., Goyal, P. and Sikdar, B., 2019. A survey on IoT security: application areas, security threats, and solution architectures. IEEE Access, 7, pp.82721-82743.
Key elements of the Spam Act, 2020 (online) Available through< https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Marketers/Anti-Spam/Ensuring-you-dont-spam/key-elements-of-the-spam-act-ensuring-you-dont-spam-i-acma> [Accessed on 11 September 2020]
Lal, S., Taleb, T. and Dutta, A., 2017. NFV: Security threats and best practices. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(8), pp.211-217.
Liu, Q., Li, P., Zhao, W., Cai, W., Yu, S. and Leung, V.C., 2018. A survey on security threats and defensive techniques of machine learning: A data driven view. IEEE access, 6, pp.12103-12117.
Roman, R., Lopez, J. and Mambo, M., 2018. Mobile edge computing, fog et al.: A survey and analysis of security threats and challenges. Future Generation Computer Systems, 78, pp.680-698.
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), 2020. (online)Available through< https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/71.%20Telecommunications%20Act/telecommunications-act-1997-cth>[Accessed on 11 September 2020]
