'Wake up call': Securty expert says Australians must take security more seriously following ASIO boss' espionage warning
ASIO chief Mike Burgess at a conference in Adelaide revealed foreign espionage was costing the Australian economy $12.5 billion a year as he unveiled the inaugural cost of espionage report.
Reacting on Sky News on Friday, Mr Jennings told host Steve Price that it was not surprising.
'This is industrial level espionage and intellectual property theft," he said.
'And of course it's being directed against Australia because we're a high technology country with very significant alliance relations with the United States and other developed economies, and it will be happening all the time.'
Mr Jennings said that Australia needed to be taking steps to protect its military and economy from people who were looking to take advantage of the situation, adding that businesses needed to be aware of the risks they are facing.
'Mike Burgess touches on this in his speech as well, how naive Australians are to imagine that it couldn't possibly happen here or it wouldn't happen to my business,' he said.
'And Mike actually quotes Australian officials saying, oh, well, no one would be interested in going after my information. This is industrial level espionage and intellectual property theft'
Mr Burgess on Thursday said "Many entities do not know their secrets have been stolen, or do not realise they've been stolen by espionage, or do not report the theft.'
He also said that there were many countries that were committing this espionage.
'The obvious candidates are very active – I've previously named China, Russia and Iran – but many other countries are also targeting anyone and anything that could give them a strategic or tactical advantage, including sensitive but unclassified information.'
Mr Burgess also said that he could not understand why some people were mentioning on social media that they carried a security clearance.
"On just one professional networking site, the profiles of more than 35,000 Australians indicate they have access to sensitive and potentially classified information. Around 7,000 reference their work in the defence sector, including the specific project they are working on, the team they are working in, and the critical technologies they are working with," he said.
"Close to 400 explicitly say they work on AUKUS, and the figure rises above 2,000 if you include broader references to 'submarines' and 'nuclear'.
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