On 28 February, The Director-General Security, released his annual threat assessment at the Ben Chifley Building in Canberra.
This is a valuable source of information regarding the prevailing and emerging security environment within Australia.
Here are a few key takeaways from that speech (direct quotes):
While the terrorism threat level is POSSIBLE, if we had a threat level for espionage and foreign interference it would be at CERTAIN – the highest level on the scale.
Right now, there is a particular team in a particular foreign intelligence service with a particular focus on Australia – we are its priority target.
Several years ago, the A-team [a foreign intelligence entity identified by ASIO] successfully cultivated and recruited a former Australian politician. This politician sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests of the foreign regime.
At one point, the former politician even proposed bringing a Prime Minister’s family member into the spies’ orbit. Fortunately, that plot did not go ahead but other schemes did.
ASIO disrupted this scheme and confronted the Australians involved. While some were unwitting, others knew they were working for a foreign intelligence service.
The Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce is particularly adept at using intelligence-led disruptions to stop attempts to monitor and harass members of Australia’s diaspora communities.
The Taskforce is based in ASIO and led by an ASIO officer, but it brings together the capabilities of a range of partners including the AFP.
Since it was stood up in mid-2020, the Taskforce has conducted more than 120 operations to mitigate threats against our communities, political systems and classified information, including the work that led to the prosecution I mentioned earlier.
In a sign of how the threat has grown, successful disruptions have increased by 265 per cent, and continue to increase exponentially. And of course, the Taskforce caseload is a subset of ASIO’s even bigger investigative effort.
There aren’t a lot of things that terrorists and spies have in common, but sabotage is one of them. ASIO is seeing both cohorts talking about sabotage, researching sabotage, sometimes conducting reconnaissance for sabotage – but, I stress, not planning to conduct sabotage at this time.
The most immediate, low cost and potentially high-impact vector for sabotage is cyber. Our critical infrastructure networks are interconnected and interdependent, which increases the vulnerabilities and potential access points.
ASIO is aware of one nation state conducting multiple attempts to scan critical infrastructure in Australia and other countries, targeting water, transport and energy networks.
The reconnaissance is highly sophisticated, using top-notch tradecraft to map networks, test for vulnerabilities, knock on digital doors and check the digital locks.
We assess this government is not actively planning sabotage but is trying to gain persistent undetected access that could allow it to conduct sabotage in the future.
Over the last 18 months, we’ve also seen an uptick in the number of nationalist and racist violent extremists advocating sabotage in private conversations, both here and overseas.
It’s particularly pronounced among ‘accelerationists’ – extremists who want to trigger a so-called ‘race war’.
We have seen them endorsing attacks on power networks, electrical substations and railway networks.
While it is largely big talk, ASIO remains concerned about a lone actor moving from talk to action without warning.
That’s been the experience in the United States, where extremist attacks on critical infrastructure are growing in number, sophistication and impact.
It’s a sobering reminder that terrorism remains a threat – a real threat, a pervasive threat – even with a lower national threat level.
Since the October 7 atrocities by Hamas the conflict has expanded with attacks carried out by a range of terrorists, particularly those aligned with Iran. We have seen attempts by ISIL and al-Qa’ida to use the conflict to motivate attacks globally and affiliates of both groups are active in Afghanistan, Africa, South-East Asia and Europe.
While the conflict is a long way away from Australia, it is resonating here and ASIO is carefully monitoring the implications for domestic security.
We have seen heightened community tensions that have translated into some incidents of violence connected to protest activity. We have also observed an increase in rhetoric encouraging violence in response to the conflict.
Hateful rhetoric has targeted Israel and the Jewish community, as well as Muslim and Palestinian communities.
Sunni violent extremism poses the greatest religiously motivated violent extremist threat in Australia. But we are not seeing Australians travelling to join the terrorists in the Middle East as we did for the ISIL Caliphate.
And thankfully have not seen the lone actor attacks that have occurred elsewhere and were inspired by that conflict.
ASIO remains concerned about lone actors, though – the potential for an individual or small group under the radar of authorities to use readily available weapons to carry out an act of terrorism. And this is a concern across the spectrum of motivations – religious and ideological.
The threat from nationalist and racist violent extremism persists.
We assess white nationalist groups are primarily focussed on recruitment and radicalisation—their recent attempts to gain public attention are a good example.
I am concerned about the accelerationist beliefs I mentioned earlier, though. And we are also still seeing individuals who are driven by anti-government and anti-authority ideologies, often inspired by conspiracy theories.
All this means there is the realistic possibility of a terrorist attack or attack planning in the next twelve months. POSSIBLE does not mean negligible.
ASIO is currently investigating multiple individuals who have discussed conducting terrorism in Australia.
If you believe a person, you know is going down a dark extremist path, please talk to someone about it and consider calling the National Security Hotline.
[1800 123 400]
The full speech can be found here.