Aussie spy chief warns of 'digital fingerprints'
The head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) has warned IT security challenges "pose one of the biggest threats of the decade", as the security landscape makes covert intelligence operations more difficult for agents.
Director-general Nick Warner said this week that despite the Federal Government spending "considerable resources" on boosting intelligence-gathering capabilities for ASIS and other Australian authorities, use of the internet and closed networks to collect information had become dangerous for the spy agency's staff.
"Developments in cyber are a two-edged sword for an agency like ASIS — they offer new ways of collecting new information but the digital fingerprints and footprints which we all now leave behind complicate the task of operating covertly," he told an event held by the Lowy Institute.
