National Security
Taking the nation's lead on cyber research Editor’s insight interview with CSIRO’s Data61 CEO, Adrian Turner
By Chris Cubbage Executive Editor
8 | Australian Security Magazine
C
SIRO’s Data61, Australia’s largest data innovation group, is supporting the Government’s Cyber Security Strategy by developing partnerships between the public and private sectors, supporting home-grown cyber security capabilities and promoting international co-operation. In effect, they have their scientific, collective fingers in many pies. Enjoying the opportunity to speak with Data 61’s CEO, Adrian Turner, there was an opportunity to get some insight into a range of projects, but three in particular; the ‘legislation coding project’ titled ‘Regorous’, digital currencies and reports to Government in use of blockchain and smart contracts, and moving from a siloed ‘cyber security strategy’ to a more holistic, protective security strategy - to build a national resilience framework. Data61’s work statements outline how the group is applying core strengths in data analytics, trustworthy software systems and autonomous cyber operations to accelerate the national cyber security strategy. Expertise ranges from designing secure authentication for IoT devices, to innovating new data encryption methods and building trustworthy and resilient cyber systems. Adrian Turner highlighted, “by focusing on research and technology to catalyse cyber industry creation, the second order consequence is that there are more skilled people and new generations of technology to keep the country cyber safe. We are conscious to not over reach in describing what we do. Our role is in industry creation in partnership with others like
the Australian Cybersecurity Growth Network (ACSGN).” Editor: I’m interested in where the CSIRO’s legislation coding project has developed too. Can you provide an update? Adrian Turner (AT) Research for Regorous was led by a team of researchers that originated within NICTA (National ICT Australia), now a part of Data61. We are building an ecosystem of tools based on an open database of logic rules. Our goal is to make laws and regulation available in a digital, machine-readable format, enabling any third party to develop their own compliance application. The underlying technology is ‘Defeasible Deontic Logic’ which maps rules and regulations, as well as a company’s business processes, into equations. This means that from the planning stage onwards, Regorous compares processes and rules, enabling organisations to identify and fix process compliance issues before deployment; automatically report on compliance; and rapidly check compliance when processes or regulations change. Regorous is the only rule system that can handle obligations, permissions, and prohibitions, including the ability to reason with violations. As an example a successful trial with an ISP ensured compliance with consumer complaints handling processes. In the domain of digital currencies, we were asked to do a report on blockchain for the Department of Treasury and the underlining protocols and how mature the technology is and the classes of the applications. It also involved evaluating the use of ‘smart contracts’ and blockchain for asset management.