The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) submitted its annual report to Parliament yesterday afternoon, in which it provided an overview of security, as well as the country's security environment and prospects.
ASIO has revealed that it has advised government, business and industry that platforms used to arm people to commit bad intelligence , i.e. espionage. One of these social media is, among others, LinkedIn. The Australian Security and Intelligence Agency's advice is that organisations should be careful with their government commitments, the defence industry and research institutions.
However, the report did not specify exactly what access ASIO had for its findings regarding the investigation conducted on LinkedIn.
In December last year, Parliament passed the Telecommunications and Other Acts Amendment Act 2018, which gave certain organisations the power to access communications and data through a series of measures.
The Department of Internal Affairs revealed early this year that law enforcement and national security services have already begun to use their powers.
As the intelligence, the telecommunications sector is of particular concern to the report, as it is a very attractive target for interference.
According to the report conducted by ASIO, the telecommunications sector undermines national infrastructure and provides opportunities for adversaries to conduct activities that pose a continuing threat to national security. It also said it would consider new encryption tactics to combat these threats in the future.
ASIO recently supported a ban on Huawei for Australia's NBN rollout. Outgoing ASIO Director General of Security Duncan Lewis said the issue of espionage and foreign interference was by far the most serious and evolving issue.
