S E C URIT Y FE ATU RE
Attacks on the private sector are a feature of what Elisabeth Braw, the director of the Modern Deterrence project at British think tank RUSI, calls blended aggression, which ranges from economic coercion to cyberattacks and irregular warfare by proxies designed to undermine trust in the state. As such attacks are likely to be directed towards private-sector assets, business owners and operators should be recognised as central to this country’s security. Economic security is an essential element of national security and it is business that is the engine room for a strong economy. Corporations are making valiant efforts to protect their assets and capabilities from attacks in the physical and cyber environments. They do so for sound commercial reasons. But such attacks are not just matters of commercial concern to companies and their shareholders. They have significant potential to weaken national resilience. A principal finding of the study was that there’s a void between business and national security agencies when it comes to understanding each other’s capabilities and limitations. Corporations have great visibility of what is happening domestically and internationally that may impact on their commercial operations. Some of our corporate heavyweights have an in-house analytical capability or subscribe to specialist intelligence and analytical providers.
CURITY
A principal finding of the study was that there’s a void between business and national security agencies when it comes to understanding each other’s capabilities and limitations.
Most major companies have an operations or crisis centre. Corporations hold considerable data that may be of benefit to governments during and after incidents. But the private sector currently plays a limited role in national crisis exercises. A phrase that has gained some usage among Australian corporate security professionals when talking about the desire for greater cooperation with the official national security community is ‘dare to share’, which refers to security officials being willing to provide information that is timely and of value in the prevention and mitigation of all risks faced by the nation. It’s recognised that there are constraints relating to passing on certain national security information related to international agreements, perceptions of corporate advantage and potentially foreign ownership. But these restrictions should not be insurmountable barriers: they don’t affect the intent to share, although they can affect the depth and timeliness of the sensitive information to be shared. ‘Dare to share’ captures this issue well and is a sound principle upon which to build a mutual commitment by business and government to an improved security-information-sharing partnership. There are already some mechanisms in place, established by both the Australian government and state governments, to ‘hook up’ with business on issues of national security. But the structures are fragmented between and within government departments and agencies and are often based on sector-specific silos.
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