Spy chief warns of 'disruptive, destructive' Chinese espionage threat as hackers cause $12.5 billion hit to the economy

Australia's spy chief has sounded the alarm over threats posed by Chinese and other foreign espionage in Australia.

ASIO's Director-General Mike Burgess warned China has been conducting espionage and other disruptive efforts within the country to target communications networks, he told an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) forum in Melbourne this morning.

Referencing two Chinese hacking groups called Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon, he said espionage had cost the economy $12.5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, but that the impacts could be far more wide-ranging.

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"These groups are hackers working for Chinese government intelligence and their military," he said.

"Both groups were involved in the theft of sensitive information, but the real danger was the threat of sabotage - disruption to critical infrastructure."

Burgess said Australia has now reached the "threshold for high-impact sabotage", warning the hackers could use similar cyberattacks on Australia to those used on the US, which he claimed allowed them to switch off crucial infrastructure.

He said it was part of a plan by authoritarian regimes like China and Russia that could have multiple impacts on Australia.

"Hackers compromised American critical infrastructure networks to pre-position for potential sabotage," he said.

"The penetrations gave China the ability to turn off telecommunications and other critical infrastructure.

"We have seen Chinese hackers probing our critical infrastructure as well.

"Authoritarian regimes are growing more willing to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure to impede decision-making, damage the economy, undermine war-fighting capability and sow social discord." 

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He pointed to the recent Optus triple-zero outage as a severe outcome to disruptions in communications, saying the impact would be more severe if such an outage was nationwide.

Burgess listed several instances of espionage ASIO had uncovered in Australia, including an academic from abroad breaking into a secure laboratory and filming what was inside and hackers stealing blueprints from an Australian manufacturer.

His latest warnings come just a week after he warned three countries had the ability to assassinate perceived dissidents on Australian soil.

Burgess told the Lowy Institute that there is a "realistic possibility" a foreign government would "attempt to assassinate a perceived dissident in Australia".

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