The CRC will be a government/ industry/academic collaboration, bringing together 24 participants to play a critical role in building Australia’s cyber security expertise and capability in cyber security research, development and commercialization. The CyberCRC aims to make a significant contribution to the realisation of the Government’s national Cyber Security Strategy, announced last February.

AARNet is one of eight inaugural Industry members of the CyberCRC and is strongly committed to supporting research in the field of cyber security. CRC members also include seven universities and research institutions and nine government agencies.

CyberCRC Research & Development

Activities will initially focus on two Programs:

• Critical Infrastructure Security will deliver systems, architecture and software solutions to ensure the security of crucial infrastructure including energy, water, communications, and finance.

• Cyber Security as a Service will deliver frameworks and solutions that standalone or can be integrated into the enterprise to maintain security resilience.

A federated Cyber Range

The CyberCRC will establish a cyber range to enable innovative research, education and training opportunities at scale. Combining university and industry partner cyber experimentation space will afford an experimentation space of tremendous scale, sophistication, and heterogeneity in operating platforms and infrastructures. The laboratory will have high realism and scale for experimentation that cannot be achieved in any one testing range, that is ­­– the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.

The range will be run as an unclassified resource, the overarching principle of operation is to provide a sustained, secure cyber range for responsible research into cyber security. It will be located geographically within university and industry partners across Australia. Each participating range partner will maintain a minimum presence of network devices for experimentation. AARNet will contribute networking infrastructure and expertise for the range.

CyberCRC participants

Research Institutions: Edith Cowan University, Adelaide University, Deakin University, Charles Sturt University, University of NSW, Queensland University of Technology, Data61

Industry: CISCO Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Singtel Optus Pty Ltd, Jemena Ltd, ActewAGL Distribution, TATA Consultancy Services, Datacom Technical Security Services, PEN10 Services Pty Ltd, Quintessencelabs Pty Ltd, AARNet Pty Ltd

Federal Government: Department of Defence (Australian Signals Directorate), Attorney General’s Department (CERT Australia, Critical Infrastructure Centre), Australian Federal Police, Australian Taxation Office, Australian Transaction Reports & Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC)

State Governments: Canberra Data Centres (NSW Data Centres) Pty Ltd, NSW Department of Finance, Services & Innovation, DefenceSA, Office of the Government Chief Information Office (WA)

Read the full media release on the Australian Cyber Security Research Institute website.