Interview on News24 with Laura Jayes

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Let's go to the Industry and Innovation Minister, Tim Ayres. Thanks so much for your time. So, can you tell us which government websites were taken offline, what services were disrupted, and can you rule out that personal information wasn't accessed?

SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Well, this isn't a breach, Laura. This is led by the Australian Signals Directorate on behalf of the Australian Government and cybersecurity agencies around the world, working with, in this case, OpenAI to identify a weakness in these systems. In this case, it does demonstrate how important it is to have that under the bonnet cooperation with the artificial intelligence frontier models. In this case, this is very good cooperation that is strengthening the Australian approach on cybersecurity and that of our partner economies around the world. But it does underline that there is a constant battle on the cyber security front and Australian Government agencies and Australian private sector firms are constantly engaged in toughening up their cybersecurity. Some of your viewers will know that occasionally they get an alert from their company to update their system. That is often because new patches are being installed on their systems to deal with vulnerabilities that have either been identified by the by Australian Signals Directorate or private sector cyber security operators and artificial intelligence.

HOST: No one knew about these vulnerabilities. The [Australian AI] Safety Institute didn't know about these vulnerabilities. As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Australian Signals Directorate did not know about these vulnerabilities. It was an AI agent that alerted the world to these vulnerabilities. So, how long have we been exposed for?

AYRES: Well, every single day there are new updates and new vulnerabilities to these massive IT systems being identified, sometimes in response to cybersecurity events and sometimes, as in this case, in response to the analysis provided by the artificial intelligence agents themselves. This is a constant battle for cybersecurity. It's one of the reasons that we have set out as an objective for Australia, making sure that we get artificial intelligence training here and the right artificial intelligence investment here –

HOST: Tim, if we can stick on this –

AYRES: – and cooperation to make Australia stronger.

HOST: Ok, so what's happened overnight? Government websites were taken offline for, what do we describe it as? A software update. And now that's fixed, there are no more vulnerabilities in government website systems. Is that right?

AYRES: Yes. I will leave Tony Burke and the Australian Signals Directorate to provide much more detailed information, but that is a normal response when it's required to take a website down for a period or to stop a function of a website while patching goes on.

HOST: Understood.

AYRES: This is normal for cyber security agencies. It happens all the time.

HOST: Yeah, well, OpenAI warned about this vulnerability, let's say 48 hours ago. In that time, could there have been exposure where we will see perhaps more data breaches than we have in the past?

AYRES: Well, lots of identification work has gone on to make sure that we make the system more robust over that period. I mean, we are constantly engaged in the work, as a government, of constantly, on a minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour basis, strengthening our cybersecurity and responding to emerging threats and emerging vulnerabilities around the world. It is not a static question. It's not like security in your home. It's security in a very complex system. In this case, this vulnerability has been identified and action has been taken. There will be more vulnerabilities over coming weeks and months and years that will be identified. The point here is that you've got to have the capability at a government level to deal with these questions. That's why the Australian Signals Directorate is so well resourced, and why we've got to build and strengthen Australia's artificial intelligence capability ourselves.

HOST: Indeed, as you say, capability is so important and you have all the resources of government to look after government websites. What are you doing, though, to support the, really, thousands, if not millions, of businesses, big and small, who also are exposed to these vulnerabilities and do not have the resources that you were talking about?

AYRES: Well, this is why measures like our National AI Centre, our AI Adopt Centres, our AI Safety Institute and the Australian Signals Directorate, which also gets out there providing advice to, and interaction with, the private sector. All of this must happen together. And the platforms that smaller firms are using are constantly engaged with cybersecurity, private advice and cyber security, and public advice, to keep evolving their capabilities. And your viewers who are working in a private sector firm will see that from time to time when they get that notification: ‘please do this update urgently’. Sometimes the system stops your email system working, for example, until you update it. Because it's so important that that individuals, small firms, big firms, government agencies are all dealing with this cybersecurity challenge. And we've got to do it together. Capability, cooperation and the capacity of government agencies like the Australian Signals Directorate are really important here.

HOST: Do we need a more fulsome update? I appreciate that Tony Burke is the Minister in charge. I mean, when we had that OpenAI breach of the Medicare system, we had the Prime Minister with all guns blazing reading the riot act to OpenAI. And, at the moment, all we have is a statement. Don't we need a more fulsome explanation here?

AYRES: Well, this underscores why the Government is taking the world leading approach that we're taking. The OpenAI incident from a few weeks ago was quite different really. That was an agent of OpenAI conducting unauthorised access in a way that it was not directed to do. That created, I think, a very strong public requirement for the Prime Minister, particularly given that he was in the United States at the time as this was unrolling, to be directly in contact with the CEO of OpenAI. And that has meant a much stronger response from OpenAI and much stronger cooperation with the Australian Government. We are going to be dealing with these issues as they come, Laura. Planning for the future, strengthening our capability, and that's why all of this work is so important.

HOST: Tim Ayres, thanks so much for your time as always. Good to see you in Adelaide. See you soon.

AYRES: Thanks, Laura. Thank you.