DDoS dilemmas Š stock.adobe.com/au/ studiostoks
#CENSUSFAIL SHOWS NEED FOR PS CULTURE CHANGE
Kevin Noonan, Lead Analyst, Government, Ovum
THE CENSUS FAILURE HAS REDUCED THE PUBLIC’S CONFIDENCE IN A ONCE-TRUSTED FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT SERVICE.
T
he implications of the Census denial of service attack go far beyond a single security incident. This is no longer just about a technical problem to be solved. In the light of the recommendations from two government enquires, there are much bigger issues about governance and leadership, as well as some long-term questions about entrenched public service culture. As Bureau of Statistics senior executives ponder the recommendation for them to attend a cyber boot camp in the coming year, it is time to move the spotlight
20 | BIZTECH REVIEW Q1 2017
from technology, contracts and blame attribution. There is now a clear need to look at the impact of digital transformation not only in the way government services are delivered, but also in terms of the implications for the underlying ground rules of public sector leadership. IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS On Census night, many Australians settled down after dinner to fill out their online Census form, only to be locked out due to a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. No data was lost, no government IT infrastructure was compromised, and the
Census was eventually completed. From a technical purist perspective, there was no actual security breach, and the system was successfully shut down before there could be any chance of damage. However, the damage in public credibility had already been done. The Census gained its own hashtag #CensusFail, and commentary in social media quickly took over from official government messaging. It was no longer a situation of government informing the public, but the public informing government via a wide-ranging social media discussion. The ABS had already lost control of the agenda, but doggedly
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