The Wire

In an international, combative effort, Australia has joined Locked Shields: an annual exercise aiming to advance the skills of cyber security experts through simulated experiments. The decision is in response to Russian cyber attacks affecting millions of machines worldwide in 2017. The state-sponsored attacks saw the hacking of computer routers of government agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure operators, including that of 400 Australian businesses. Despite being targeted, the Australian companies were not significantly exploited, though Russian access to data could mean the launch of future attacks.