Morrison wants organisations to prioritise trust over efficiency for data security

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned organisations to prioritise trust over costs and efficiency when it comes to data security, pointing to the recent cyber attacks in Ukraine as lessons for organisations to learn from.

"I tell you particularly in a more troubled world, especially from a data security point of view, supply chains are frankly more about trust now than they even are about efficiency or cost," said Morrison, who officially opened Macquarie Telecom's new AU$85 million hyperscale data centre in Sydney.

"We see that in the most terrible events, whether it's in Ukraine or the stresses that are being placed on our own country here in the Indo-Pacific, when it comes to your data security you've got to be dealing with someone you trust and so words like sovereign really mean something -- secure, really mean something."

In providing this warning, the prime minister said organisations need to prioritise developing data security skills and building secure critical infrastructure, pointing to Macquarie Telecom's new data centre as an example.

"I think that's one of the great virtues of where we are today and one of the reasons why investments like this are made in Australia because of the amazing people that we're training and bringing into our companies and our organisations. This is enabling infrastructure such as this to be built for it," he said.

Macquarie Telecom's new 10MW data centre, called Intellicentre 3 East (IC3 East), has a federal government-level SCEC Zone 3 or higher security standard and is staffed by government-cleared engineers at all times.

According to the company, the data centre has a security ops centre that will be used to support government agencies when they encounter cyber threats, Macquarie Government director Aidan Tudehope said.

"The world has changed quite dramatically in recent years and particularly in recent months. This has had a direct impact on the level of cybercriminal activity which is landing on Australian shores," he said.

Macquarie Telecom said the security ops centre contains a dashboard that provides information on where cyber attacks are coming from, what cybercriminals or foreign actors are targeting, and identifying patterns of cyber threats.

The IC3 East opening follows the government earlier this week launching an AU$89 million cybercrime centre that is specifically focused on preventing cybercriminals from scamming, stealing, and defrauding Australians.

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