COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
FINAL REPORT
Impact Analysis of CSIRO Cybersecurity
Research
Prepared for
CSIRO
August 2020
THE CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
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Contents
Summary 1
1 Challenges and risks 6
What’s at stake 6
Need for risk management capability and governance 10
Solution: build resilience, shared awareness, and human capacity 11
2 Impact pathway for Data61 Cybersecurity 14
Inputs 14
Outputs: What Data61 cyber delivers 16
Outcomes 24
Too early to estimate net benefits but the value case is clear 29
References 32
BOXES, CHARTS AND TABLES
1 Multidimensional impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity 3
2 Key outcomes and impacts of Data61’s Cybersecurity programs 5
1.1 Potential economy-wide impact of digital disruptions 8
1.2 Annual average cost of the consequences of cyberattacks 8
1.3 Summary of data insights from the 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report 9
1.4 Multidimensional impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity 13
2.1 CSIRO’s investment into major cyber security groups 14
2.2 Increasing funding dominance of key programs over time 15
2.3 High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems 21
2.4 Trustworthy Systems (TS) 22
2.5 Data Airlock 23
2.6 R4 – The re-identification risk ready reckoner 23
2.7 Major customers for FY 18-20 Revenue 24
2.8 Cost recovery by cybersecurity group 25
2.9 Significant Cybersecurity publications 26
2.10 Publication productivity of key team researchers 27
2.11 Invited keynote and plenary talks (2018–19) 28
2.12 Estimated economic returns from Trustworthy Systems 30
2.13 Key outcomes and impacts of Data61’s Cybersecurity program 31
Summary
CSIRO’s Data61 (Data61) Cybersecurity represents an exemplar in CSIRO research:
clear causal links between research excellence, and meeting the specific needs of
government and industry to address large scale challenges and avoid potentially large
scale societal and economic costs.
The impact pathway identifies clear links between collaborative, capability, and
capacity building activities; new technologies and solutions with immediate and wider
application; and an ability to unlock significant digital, data and Artificial Intelligence
capabilities to boost productivity and growth.
Addressing problems that otherwise pose significant risks to Australia
Global connectivity poses a major challenge to the protection of privacy and trust, with
costly disruptive potential, with US$170 billion1 spent globally to minimise cybersecurity
risks.
1 Cybersecurity Ventures, ‘Cybersecurity Market Report Q4 2015’, Cybersecurity Ventures, 2015,
, accessed 27 July
2020
2 Actual report cannot be sourced in the public domain. References to the estimate have most
recently reported in Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, ‘Cybercrime’, Australian
Criminal Intelligence Commission, 2019, , accessed 3 June 2020.
3 AustCyber, ‘Australia’s Digital Trust Report 2020’, AustCyber, July 2020,
, accessed 30 July 2020
At its most severe, cybersecurity incidents cost are estimated to cost the Australian
economy up to $1 billion per year.2 Australian sectors most reliant on cyber connectivity
generate annual gross revenue of more than $500 trillion, and account for nearly 670 000
Australian jobs. For these sectors, the loss in GDP from one week of cyber downtime due
to cyber invasion is estimated at $5.6 trillion, with a loss of 32 000 jobs.3
Levels of risk and cost need to be addressed, as businesses and governments rely on
accurate and thorough data to protect their information and digital assets. This is
complex, with cyber risk assessment challenged by fast-evolving threats and data
limitations, which are difficult to address when organisations are unwilling to share
relevant information, and/or are unaware of their vulnerabilities to data loss and privacy-
invasive actions.
Solution: build resilience, shared awareness, and human capacity
Since 2016, CSIRO’s Data61 has been undertaking a range of initiatives to boost
research, commercialisation and connectivity outcomes across Australia’s cyber industry,
and drive the development of new cybersecurity architectures. The cybersecurity program
now includes over 47 activities across focused cyber themes, including:
■ boosting cyber security research and collaboration
■ cyber ecosystem activities
■ commercialisation of cyber solutions
■ improving Cyber Security Skills, and
■ deepening connections with international partners.
Over 60 cybersecurity researchers and engineers have been funded to support projects to
improve cyber research and technology commercialisation over the past three years.
Between FY2018 and FY2020, $33.8 million in funding has been invested by CSIRO in
its three major cyber security groups within the Software and computational Systems
(SCS) research program.4 These groups have delivered new platform technologies and
associated products that are actively being trialled and adopted by researchers, industry,
and all levels of government, in Australia and internationally. Key outputs of the team
include:
4 Trustworthy Systems, Distributed Systems Security, and Information Security and Privacy.
Includes salary, on-costs and operating costs.
■ novel science and technological solutions
■ new partnerships and collaborations
■ risk assessments for government to improve preparedness and response to cyber attack
■ leadership and guidance forums and materials for cyber initiatives
■ new training and development opportunities, and
■ elevated CSIRO and Australia’s international reputation.
The impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity expands from impacts associated with
discrete technology partnerships to changes in the cyber security system and capacity in
Australia. An overview of its multidimensional nature is illustrated below.
1 Multidimensional impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity
SHORT TERM
Partnerships that solve cybersecurity
problems
MEDIUM TERM
Building cybersecurity awareness
and industry technical capacity
LONGER TERM
Increased cybersecurity
preparedness for Australia
INPUTS
CSIRO
internal
funding
Government
agency
funding for
projects
Industry
funding for
projects
OUTPUTS
Collaborative
partnerships
New product and
research road maps
to provide strategic
direction
Risk assessment
reports
New t
echnologies
that protect
business and
government
systems
PhD training
opportunities in
cybersecurity
New uses and applications for
platform technologies
Ongoing new partnerships
Training
programs for
industry
Graduated PhD
students with
research outputs
CSIRO and Australian reputational
excellence in cybersecurity
Systems in place to protect against
evolving risks
Stakeholder awareness of risks and
solutions
OUTCOMES
Stakeholder
collaboration
More research
capacity and
ca
p
ability
Better
information
qual
ity
due to
improved data
analytics
Use/adoption of
outputs (processes,
technologies
Improved cybersecurity protection for
individuals and organisations
Economic resilience, enhanced
productivity, GDP growth
IMPACTS
Reduced harm to individuals (privacy breach)
and organisations (IP theft, reputational and
stock price risk, fines)
More efficient use
of skills and
resources
Reduced
waste/downtime
Improved sovereign and national
security benefits
Increased labour and capital
productivity
Stronger more productive economy
Improved societal outcomes
Source: CIE.
Valuing Data61 Cybersecurity
In its short history, Data61 Cybersecurity has enhanced CSIROs contribution to
Australia’s cybersecurity innovation and protection, leveraged additional government
and industry investment, and brought stakeholders together to achieve more through
collaboration and dispersion of cybersecurity capacity building than would have been
achieved otherwise.
This includes leveraging substantial investment into Australia’s cybersecurity
preparedness, with numerous contracts with clients to provide commissioned work to
address industrial and agency needs. Over 2018-2020, contracted revenue for the three
cyber groups has amounted to 27.9 million in nominal terms. With additional
cybersecurity-related funding for Data61 from the National Innovation and Science
Agenda (NISA) of $19.8 million over three years allocated to the three cyber groups, this
results in all cyber groups covering their labour and overhead costs, and generating
additional research capacity for CSIRO. Across the three cyber groups, a cost recovery
rate of 178 per cent is achieved, ranging from 115 per cent for Trustworthy Systems to
235 per cent for Distributed Systems Security.
The public dissemination of publications from the research team have been embraced
globally, generating an estimated $844 000 annually as works are cited by the
cybersecurity research community.5
5 Calculated by the CIE, as described later in this report.
Data61’s Cybersecurity groups are still in their infancy, and growing as fast as their staff
capacity can sustain. With the PhD scholarships program and upskilling of industry,
cybersecurity capacity will grow, and with it, demand from government and industry to
improve cybersecurity preparedness across the country.
The rapid uptake of demand for cybersecurity expertise, and the leveraged commitment
to substantial funding of research points to a research program that is highly valued on
multiple fronts, with the capacity to materially impact on the resilience of the Australian
economy.
The logic of the impact creation model for Cybersecurity is illustrated in chart 2.
2 Key outcomes and impacts of Data61’s Cybersecurity programs
Monetary value of Data61 Cybersecurity
■ $27.9 million in client revenue over 3 years for the
3 major cyber groups. With the addition of NISA
funding, results in cost recovery rate of
178 per cent
■ Income gains for supported PhD scholars in
cybersecurity
■ Productivity gains for Australian business and
government
■ Dissemination of valued research worth $870k p.a.
Improved research effort
■ Strategic research partnerships
and joint research projects across
cybersecurity community
■ Increased investment in cyber
research leveraged from external
sources
Efficient and
effective innovation
■ Insights from
shared data
■ Minimising
research
fragmentation
■ Access to larger
datasets for
analytics
■ Mission and
outcomes focused
research tailored to
specific
partner/client
requirements
■
Improved societal
outcomes
■ Safer more trusting
society
■ Increased
employment
prospects and
security
■ Increased
businesses with
cybersecurity
preparedness
■ Additional exports
■ Better policy
1 Enhanced quality and
quantity of cyber
research
3A
Discovery
begets
Discovery
7 Greater cybersecurity
awareness and
technical capacity
2 Enabled
collaborations
and partnership
mechanisms
6 Strategic relationships
built that attract future
funding and cement a
Security Innovation
Network
3 Enhanced data
analytics capabilities
with simultaneous
data protection
Geo-strategic
advantages
■ Improved bilateral
and multilateral
relations
■ Increased
opportunity for
trade and capital
flows
■ Strengthened
institutions to
protect national
and international
security
Improved
knowledge of
risk exposure,
security
vulnerabilities,
and cyber
readiness
■ Cybersecurity
skills in industry
5 Improved
international
standing and
reputation
4 Cyber and privacy
safer
technologies and
systems
Productivity gain for government and business
■ Greater adaption of cybersecurity technologies in industry
■ Minimised resources spent on identifying and resolving
cyber threats
■ Streamlined and automated processes to improve
business efficiency
■ Increased data analytics capabilities as data is more
accessible
New technologies and
solutions
■ Business systems
secured
■ Road maps to identify
root causes and
solutions
Data source: CIE.
1 Challenges and risks
Since 2016, CSIRO’s Data61 (or Data61) has been a driving catalyst in Australia’s
cyber research agenda, and is already beginning to realise Australia’s potential to be
a regional and global leader in cyber research and technology commercialisation.
Its approach is highly collaborative, including partnerships with Australian and
international governments, companies, universities, and networks to bring the best
minds and mission-driven solutions to Australian needs and challenges, and ensure
Australian governments and companies have early access to emerging technologies
and capabilities.
Research investments are being made across cyber-aligned fields including
trustworthy systems, distribution system security, data security and privacy, AI and
cyber security, and human central cyber security to demonstrate at scale the use of
new cyber techniques and architectures in the local environment.
What’s
at stake
Global connectivity facilitated by information and digital technologies brings enormous
opportunities for business and society. However, it also represents a major challenge to
the protection of privacy and trust, and has the potential to destabilise, disrupt and
corrupt information systems and infrastructure at a large economic and social cost.
The 2018 Symantec Security Response estimated that globally there are an average of
5200 Internet of Things attacks per month.6 In early 2018, Meltdown and Spectre put
industry on global alert of an in-built insecure default that allows attackers to bypass
security control and steal data if exploited.7 Data61 had played in integral role in
discovering Spectre and Foreshadow, a variant of Meltdown that bypassed Intel’s secure
vault to expose data.8
6 Davis, D., ‘Internet of Things Cyber Attacks Grow More Diverse’, Symantec-enterprise-blogs, 2019,
,
accessed 6 June 2020.
7 Australian Cyber Security Centre, ‘ACSC statement on reports of Intel Active Management
Technology (AMT) security issue’, Australian Signals Directorate, 2018,
, accessed 6 June 2020.
8 Chelvan, C., ‘Foreshadowing attacks: cybersecurity researchers save the day’, CSIRO scope, Aug
2018, ,
accessed 10 Aug 2020
A 2019 report by Dell Computing found that of 307 companies suffered hardware
breaches, 52 per cent experienced loss of sensitive data, 39 per cent incurred financial loss
due to system downtime, and 32 per cent suffered financial loss due to remediation
efforts.9
9 Forrester Consulting, ‘BIOS Security – The Next Frontier for Endpoint Protection Report’, Dell
Technologies, 2019, < https://www.dellemc.com/ja-jp/collaterals/unauth/analyst-
reports/solutions/dell-bios-security-the-next-frontier-for-endpoint-protection.pdf>, accessed 6
June 2020.
10 The Office of Australian Information Commissioner, ‘Notifiable Data Breaches Statistics
Report: 1 January to 31 March 2018’, OAIC Notifiable data breaches, July 2018, <
https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/notifiable-data-breaches/notifiable-data-breaches-
statistics/notifiable-data-breaches-statistics-report-1-january-to-31-march-2018/>, accessed 4 June
2020
11 Culnane, C., Rubinstein, B., and Teague, V., ‘Health Data in an Open World’, Corenell
University arXiv Organisation, 2017,
, accessed 6 June 2020.
12 CSIRO Data61 Cyber Security Strategy, 2019, p 1
13 Actual report cannot be sourced in the public domain. References to the estimate have most
recently reported in Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, ‘Cybercrime’, Australian
Criminal Intelligence Commission, 2019, , accessed 3 June 2020.
14 AustCyber, ‘Australia’s Digital Trust Report 2020’, AustCyber, July 2020,
, accessed 30 July 2020
In Australia, the Office of Australian Information Commissioner 2018 report on
Australian data breaches found nearly 25 per cent of data breaches occurred in the health
sector, which is highly vulnerable to re-identification risk and thereby significant financial
and reputational ramifications.10
To assess Australia’s exposure to health data risks, researchers from the University of
Melbourne successfully re-identified the longitudinal medical billing records of 10 per
cent of Australians, equivalent to around 2.9 million people to demonstrate the relative
ease in re-identifying Australian patient medical data without permission using an
undergraduate-computing-level skill set.11
Given these challenges, Australian and international demand for cybersecurity solutions
is strong, with an estimated US$170 billion spent globally to minimise cybersecurity
risks.12
Costs of cyber intrusion and risks
Cyber intrusion has a direct deleterious economic impact, typically associated with denial
of service assaults and malicious insiders.
The 2019 Australian Cyber Security Review found that cybersecurity incidents cost the
Australian economy up to $1 billion per year.13 In 2020, it was estimated that Australian
sectors most reliant on cyber connectivity generate annual gross revenue of more than
$500 trillion, and account for nearly 670 000 Australian jobs.14 For these sectors, the loss
in GDP from one week of cyber downtime due to cyber invasion is estimated at
$5.6 trillion, with a loss of 32 000 jobs. Worse still, the rate of losses accelerates as the
period of cyber downtime extends (table 1.1).
1.1 Potential economy-wide impact of digital disruptions
Sector
1-week attack
4-week attack
GDP ($m)
Jobs
GDP ($m)
Jobs
Digital activity
-4 965
-27 174
-29 788
-163 042
Cyber security
-283
-1 541
-1 700
-9 248
Online retail
-290
-2 690
-2 002
-18 558
Digital health
-27
-189
-174
-1 202
Solar power
generation
-10
-43
-63
-281
Space industry
-27
-178
-178
-1 189
Hydrogen
manufacturing
-0.16
-1
-1
-5
Total
-5 602
-31 816
-33 906
-193 525
Note: Note that the scenarios were designed in terms of timescale only.
Source: AustCyber, ‘Australia’s Digital Trust Report 2020’, AustCyber, July 2020,
, accessed 30 July 2020
International studies that publish more specific data on cybersecurity costs tend to report
lower costs, albeit still substantive, and are of major concern for Australia and
internationally. The Ninth Annual Cost of Cybercrime Study estimated that the average
annual cost to a country from cyberattacks is US$13 million. The most costly type of
attack is from malware (US$2.6 million annually), and the most costly consequence was
to business disruption (US$4 million annually), mainly due to denial of service (table
1.2).
1.2 Annual average cost of the consequences of cyberattacks
Business
disruption
Information loss
Revenue
loss
Equipment
damage
Total cost by
attack type
US$2019
US$2019
US$2019
US$2019
US$2019
Malware
0.5
1.4
0.6
0.1
2.6
Web-based attacks
0.3
1.4
0.6
2.3
Denial of service
1.1
0.2
0.4
0.1
1.7
Malicious insiders
0.6
0.6
0.3
0.1
1.6
Phishing and social engineering
0.4
0.7
0.3
1.4
Malicious code
0.2
0.9
0.2
1.4
Stolen devices
0.4
0.4
0.1
0.1
1.0
Ransomware
0.2
0.3
0.1
0.1
0.7
Botnets
0.1
0.2
0.1
0.4
Total cost by consequence
4.0
5.9
2.6
0.5
13.0
Note: Numbers may not add due to rounding.
Source: Bissell, K., and Lasalle, R., ‘Ninth Annual Cost of Cybercrime Study’, Accenture Security North America, 2019,
, accessed 4 June 2020.
Across all countries, the total value at risk from cybercrime is estimated to be US$5.2
trillion over the next five years, based on value at risk globally from direct and indirect
cyberattacks over the 2019-2023 period.
The IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report in 2019 found that the probability of
experiencing a data breach over two years was 29.6 per cent, which has increased by
close to a third over the past five years.
The reported average cost of a data breach is US$3.92 million, with an average breach
size of 25 550 records, and the average time to identify and contain a breach being
279 days (314 days when caused by malicious attack).15
15 IBM Security, ‘IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report 2019’, IBM, 2019, <
https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach>, accessed 5 June 2020.
16 U.S. Food & Drug Administration, ‘Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities Identified in St. Jude
Medical's Implantable Cardiac Devices and Merlin@home Transmitter: FDA Safety
Communication’, 2017 Safety Communications, 2017, , accessed 3 June 2020.
Average costs are 95 per cent higher in an organisation where there is no security
automation deployed, and in Australia (as is the international average) 48 per cent of
organisations do not have security automation deployed. A comparison of costs for
Australia vis-à-vis the global average are summarised in table 1.3.
Not captured in these estimates are the financial costs associated with risks to assurance
of underlying service reliability for life–or mission–critical systems or functions.
For instance, in 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration identified that many
medical devices – including St. Jude Medical's implantable cardiac devices – contain
configurable embedded computer systems that are unsafe from cyber invasions and
exploits. Malfunctions such as battery depletion and incorrect pacing or shocks, due to
intrusion into such a life-critical system, can cause devastating injury or even death.16
1.3 Summary of data insights from the 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report
Australia
Global average
Average cost of a data breach
US$2.13 million
US$3.92 million
Average cost of a data breach that takes more than 200 days to resolve
Not reported
US$4.56 million
Average cost of a data breach that takes less than 200 days to resolve
Not reported
US$3.34 million
Average cost of a megabreach (more than one million records)
Not reported
US$3.92 million
Average cost per record breached
US$110
US$150
Direct expenses
US$50
Not reported
Non cash outlays needed for breach resolution
US$60
Not reported
Cost per health record breached
US$429
US$645
Source: IBM Security, ‘IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report 2019’, IBM, 2019, < https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach>,
accessed 5 June 2020
There are also high potential risks of cyberattacks to embedded systems.
Complex in nature, embedded systems are typically used in automobiles, mobile phones,
industrial machines and medical equipment. For example, embedded systems in
consumer vehicles entail cruise control, backup sensors, suspension control and airbag
systems, hence cyber invasion can have potentially severe consequences.
In 2015, trial research showed vulnerability of the Jeep SUV being hacked via its Sprint
cellular network, with attackers able to gain full control of entire vehicles with speedup,
slowdown and veer-off.17
17 Bonderud, D., ‘Eight Crazy Hacks: The Worst and Weirdest Data Breaches of 2015’, Security
Intelligence, 2015, < https://securityintelligence.com/eight-crazy-hacks-the-worst-and-weirdest-
data-breaches-of-2015/>, accessed 3 June 2020.
18 2020 Cyber Security Strategy Industry Advisory Panel, ‘Industry Advisory Panel Report for
Australia’s 2020 Cyber Security Strategy’, Department of Home Affairs of Australian
Government, July 2020, , accessed 30 July 2020
The immediate adverse impacts of untrustworthy systems include software defects,
system failure, leakage of sensitive information, financial costs, and in embedded
systems, damage to property, injury, or loss of life.
Immediate financial costs include user incidents and repair costs for bugs, and costs
associated with delayed service introduction.
Longer term costs include the development or exacerbation of:
■ loss of reputation and future business
■ legal actions
■ injuries and fatalities
■ crime
■ loss of employment, and
■ loss of public service and essential services.
Need for risk management capability and govern
ance
Faced by emerging cyber threats with evolving scope, scale and sophistication, the 2020
Cyber Security Strategy Industry Advisory Panel outlined key strategic priorities and
identified best practice from an industry perspective. The 2020 Cyber Security Strategy is
clear-sighted about opportunities and barriers on cyber risk management, development of
trustworthy digital market, and shared awareness of cyber treat. In particular, the 2020
Strategy recommends18:
■ to develop treat-identifiers for a digital technology market where security is built in
across the supply chain, leveraging Australia’s global leadership in cyber policy
development, as well as support by major national agencies – the CSIRO and Defence
Science and Technology.
■ to increase investment in cyber security research and development
■ to improve collaboration with the cyber industry to shape cyber security standards and
align market-wide practise with a transparent and secure digital supply chains
■ to promote partnerships between the institutions and the industry to share real-time
treat information for preparedness.
Hence, levels of risk and cost need to be incorporated into a cybersecurity risk
management and government framework, as businesses and governments rely on
accurate and thorough information to protect their information assets. Despite its
importance, a comprehensive cyber risk assessment is challenged by fast-evolving threats
and data limitations. One important constraint is the ability to assess the probability and
cost of a security incident when organisations are unwilling to share relevant
information, and/or are unaware of their vulnerabilities to data loss and privacy-invasive
actions.19
19 Taylor (2015), ‘Potential Problems with Information Security Risk Assessments’, Information
Security Journal: A Global Perspective, vol. 24, pp.1-8, 2015.
Part of a successful cyber defence includes human capabilities in recognising risk,
provisioning for their mitigation, and devising dynamic solutions that can adapt to
changing needs.
S
olution: build resilience, shared awareness, and human capacity
Since 2016, Data61 has been undertaking a range of initiatives to boost research,
commercialisation and connectivity outcomes across Australia’s cyber industry, and
drive the development of new cybersecurity architectures. The cybersecurity program
now includes over 47 activities across focused cyber themes, including:
■ developing new scientific and technological solutions
■ boosting cyber security research and collaboration
■ cyber ecosystem activities
■ commercialisation of cyber solutions
■ improving Cyber Security Skills, and
■ deepening connections with international partners.
Enhanced research and collaboration
A core strategy of the cyber security program is to boost cyber research capability and
collaboration in Australia, including with the Australian Centre for Cyber Security,
Australian Cyber Security Growth Network (AustCyber), and CyberSecurity CRC. Key
research areas include:
■ Trustworthy Systems — building on the formally verified seL4 operating system kernel
to architect systems with critical components isolated from uncritical, untrusted ones
■ Distributed Systems Security — designing security for distributed systems, including
in areas such as IoT
■ Data Security and Privacy — identifying and quantifying risks of data privacy and
security vulnerabilities and developing privacy-preserving technologies
■ AI and Cyber Security — using AI to solve cybersecurity problems and designing
secure and safe AI systems, and
■ Human Centric Cyber Security — focusing on vulnerabilities and threats centred
around humans: usage, user and usability.
These activities are already increasing collaboration across Australia’s cyber ecosystem,
and aligning activity around Australia’s key cyber challenges and opportunities. Several
research outputs and technologies have already been developed, and are being trialled by
governments and industry for potential future deployment.
Through NISA’s Platforms for Open Data (PfOD) initiative, Data61 is also supporting
Commonwealth Government Departments to explore and deploy secure data sharing
and analysis technologies. The impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity is
multidimensional, ranging from impacts associated with discrete technology partnerships
to changes in the cyber security system and capacity in Australia. An overview of its
multidimensional nature is illustrated in chart 1.4 and described further in Chapter 2.
1.4 Multidimensional impact pathway for CSIRO Cybersecurity
SHORT TERM
Partnerships that solve cybersecurity
problems
MEDIUM TERM
Building cybersecurity awareness
and industry technical capacity
LONGER TERM
Increased cybersecurity
preparedness for Australia
INPUTS
CSIRO
internal
funding
Government
agency
funding for
projects
Industry
funding for
projec
ts
OUTPUTS
Collaborative
partnerships
New product and
research road maps
to provide strategic
direction
Risk assessment
reports
New technologies
that protect
business and
government
systems
PhD training
opportunities in
cybersecurity
New uses and applications for
platform technologies
Ongoing new partnerships
Training
programs for
industry
Graduated PhD
students with
research outputs
CSIRO and Australian reputational
excellence in cybersecurity
Systems in place to protect against
evolving risks
Stakeholder awareness of risks and
solutions
OUTCOMES
Stakeholder
collaboration
Use/adoption of outputs (processes,
technologies
More
research
capacity and
ca
p
ability
Better
information
quality
Economic resilience, enhanced
productivity, GDP growth
IMPACTS
More efficient u
se of
skills and resources
Reduced waste/downtime
Increased labour and capital
productivity
Stronger more productive
economy
Improved societal outcomes
Source: CIE.
2 Impact pathway for
Data61
Cybersecurity
In its short history, Data61 Cybersecurity has enhanced CSIROs contribution to
Australia’s cybersecurity protection, leveraged additional government and industry
investment, and brought stakeholders together to achieve more through collaboration
and dispersion of cybersecurity capacity than would have been achieved otherwise.
The value of cybersecurity expertise from Data61 is evidenced by high demand for
commissioned projects, which for the three cybersecurity groups covers over 189
per cent of all program costs (comprised of $ 47.7 million in direct client revenue and
NISA cybersecurity-related funding). The public dissemination of publications from the
research team have been embraced globally, generating an estimated $870 000
annually as works are cited by the cybersecurity research community.
Inputs
CSIRO has invested in over 60 full time equivalent (FTE) cybersecurity researchers and
engineers to support projects to improve cyber research and technology
commercialisation over the past three years. Between FY2018– FY2020, $25.2 million
has been invested by CSIRO in its three major cyber security groups (table 2.1).
2.1 CSIRO’s investment into major cyber security groups
Distributed
Systems Security
Trustworthy Systems
Information Security
and Privacy
Total
$’000
$’000
$’000
$’000
Operating costs
FY18
594.9
365.0
15.3
975.2
FY19
1 390.6
294.3
24.8
1 709.7
FY20
1 187.6
240.2
54.4
1 482.2
Total operating costs
3 173.1
899.6
94.4
4 167.1
Salary cost
FY18
987.8
3 120.1
339.0
4 446.9
FY19
1 569.8
3 881.3
1 825.3
7 276.4
FY20
3 533.6
3 953.2
1 901.8
9 388.5
Total salary costs
6 091.1
10 954.6
4 066.0
21 111.7
TOTAL
9 264.2
11 854.2
4 160.4
25 278.8
Source: CSIRO unpublished.
Funding across the portfolio has increased in each year, although the focus on project
work and the involvement of external funding sources has seen funding fluctuations at
the group level, with Distributed System Security, then Trustworthy Systems,
experiencing the strongest overall growth in funding of all the groups (chart 2.2).
2.2 Increasing funding dominance of key programs over time
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
FY 18
FY 19
FY 20
$m
Distributed Systems Security
Trustworthy Systems
Information Security and Privacy
Source: CSIRO unpublished
Key non-CSIRO sources of funding comprise:
■ co-investment funding from Science and Industry Endowment Fund, Defence
Science & Technology Group, Cyber Security Research Centre Ltd.,, Department of
Transport, Asian Office of Aerospace Research, and Intersective Pty. Ltd.
■ CSIRO strategic funding to conduct research in broad cyber areas, such as from
Department of Finance, Australia Competition & Consumer, The Department of the
Prime Minister, Australian Prudential Regulation, and PwC, and
■ service and consulting commissioned work for Hensoldt Cyber GmbH, HRL
Laboratories, LLC, Rockwell Collins Inc, The Boeing Company Inc, Cyber Security
Research Centre Ltd, United Technologies Corporation, Department of Customer
Service, Department of Foreign, Australian Federal Police, Department of Industry,
Science, and US Army International Technology and others.
Outputs: What Data61 cyber delivers
All the programs within the Data61 cyber portfolio have delivered new platform
technologies and associated products that are actively being trialled and adopted by
researchers, industry, and all levels of government, in Australia and internationally.
Key output domains across the Data61 cyber portfolio include the following:
■ new partnerships and collaborations
■ risk assessments for government agencies to improve their preparedness and response
to cyber attack
■ leadership and guidance forums and materials for cyber initiatives
■ new training and development opportunities, and
■ elevated CSIRO and Australia’s international reputation.
New research partnerships
Important partnerships to date include:
■ a three year strategic partnership (now extended for an additional three years) with the
Defence Science and Technology Group (DST Group) for research collaboration in
the areas of cyber and electronic warfare. This partnership has resulted in:
– the commencement of 23 joint research projects with 15 universities in areas
including cyber influence and data analytics, sensing to effects, autonomous
systems, and system design for resilience
– a networking forum held between Data61, DST Group and AustCyber in
November 2017, attended by 80 participants from a wide range of universities and
industries. The networking forum developed into a full-fledged the cybersecurity
for defence conference. The first one was planned for March/20 but had to be
postponed due to COVID19.
– two Data61- DST Group Cyber Summer Schools (a third was postponed due to
COVID19) providing 150 Australian research and academic leaders with access to
international and local thought leaders in defence cyber, and
– an early exploration of cyber security risk modelling for Australia’s maritime ports
to assess the convergence of cyber physical and logical cyber threats impacting the
industry and national security.
■ partnering with the Attorney General’s Department and CERT Australia to
explore a Cyber Threat Information Portal to support government to industry threat
intelligence sharing
■ partnering with the NSW Government to deliver targeted projects in:
– Cybersecurity governance and management — developing a strategic roadmap for
the protection of New South Wales’ critical infrastructure
– Internet-of-Things security — exploring deployment of a lightweight public-key
encryption scheme and multi-level authentication protocol
– cross-agency cybersecurity collaboration — exploring the potential for the use of
blockchain to support cross-agency process coordination, and
– threat intelligence data analytics — using advanced models for threat intelligence
analytics, in a NSW context
■ partnering with the ACT Government to establish the Canberra Cyber Network
(CCN) — a collaboration between ACT Government, ANU, UNSW Canberra, UC
and CIT, to promote best practice policy and behaviour in government and business
■ working with the Victorian Government to grow Data61’s Victorian Cyber and
Innovation Centre in Melbourne and establish it as a focal point for industry to
research collaboration and network building
■ working with the Queensland Government to understand cyber readiness, security
vulnerabilities and to explore the establishment of a secure data sharing framework
within government, and
■ collaborating on projects with States’ internal data analytics groups, including the
NSW Data Analytics Centre (DAC) and Victorian Centre for Data Insights
(VCDI) and SA’s Office of Data Analytics to support the sharing of sensitive
information across government.
Data61 is also strengthening its international reputation for cyber excellence through
partnerships such as:
■ collaboration with DARPA and Rockwell Collins on a joint “Cyber Assured
Systems Engineering (CASE)” project, trialling Data61’s mathematically proven seL4
system software and architecture in defence applications
■ a multi-million, multi-year collaboration with a major European cybersecurity
company and RISC-V Foundation on critical system security
■ joining various national networks and forums such as Australia-Israel cybersecurity
dialogue, Prime Minister’s round table on cybersecurity, working group for
Academic Centre of Excellence on cybersecurity and AustCyber, and
■ Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) or other collaboration with various
international universities on cybersecurity such as MIT, CMU, Purdue, NIST,
University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at San Antonio, TU Munich, Uni
Augsburg, Uni, Chalmers Uni, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Singapore
research ecosystems (NUST/NTU/A*Star) and IIT Bombay.
Risk assessments for agencies
In just three years, Data61 has established itself as a trusted advisor on privacy-enhancing
and secure data sharing and associated technologies.
Over 30 privacy risk assessment have either been undertaken by Data61 and/or using its
technology and tools for diverse data assessment use cases, and more than ten
government departments and agencies have been provided with a Re-identification Risk
Metric and Privacy and Re-identification Risk assessment.
For instance, Data61 has:
■ worked with Australian Bureau of Statistics to prototype software enabling public
data platforms to interactively access aggregated data, drawn from unit record
datasets
■ supported the Department of Social Services (DSS) in generating a synthetic social
security dataset, allowing data to be openly released, whilst maintaining data privacy
■ worked with DSS and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to develop and
test software and a user interface to enable auditable data extraction and delivery into
a secure environment for policy and research purposes by authorised users
■ developed prototype technology for Department of Industry, Innovation and
Science use in conducting web-based data analytics of BLADE data (business
longitudinal), while preventing spontaneous recognition, and
■ worked with the Queensland Office of the Information Commissioner, with Data61
acknowledged in the report tabled to the Queensland Parliament, which noted
‘We engaged CSIRO’s Data61, the data science and digital specialist arm of the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, to assist with this section of
the report. Data61 are experts in de-identification and re-identification risk analysis. They have
specialised analytic tools that quantify the re-identification risk ‘score’ of de-identified data. We
used these risk scores, and Data61’s supporting analysis, to inform our findings in this chapter.’
20In addition, many sections of its published guideline is directly linked to recommendations
provided by Data61.21
20 The Queensland Office of the Information Commissioner, ‘Privacy and Public Data’, Queensland
Office of Information Commissioner, July 2020, p.25 , accessed 29 July 2020
21 The Queensland Office of the Information Commissioner, ‘Privacy and de-identified data’,
Queensland Office of Information Commissioner, July 2020, <
https://www.oic.qld.gov.au/guidelines/for-government/guidelines-privacy-
principles/anonymity/privacy-and-de-identification>, accessed 29 July 2020
22 See https://research.csiro.au/distributed-systems-security/cyber-common-operating-picture-
ccop/
23 See https://research.csiro.au/distributed-systems-security/artificial/
24 See https://research.csiro.au/distributed-systems-security/deception/
Leadership and guidance forums and materials for cyber initiatives
Data61 is also actively supporting a number of broader cyber initiatives, including:
■ leading as an industry and research provider to the Cyber Security CRC, joining 18
industry participants and 6 research partners, and co-leading initial projects for the
CRC in security automation and orchestration, example projects include:
– Cyber Common Operating Picture (CCOP) — A Platform for Gathering,
Analysing, and Visualising Cyber Security Data22
– SMART SHIELD Artificial Intelligence Assisted Holistic Anti-Phishing System23
– Deception as a service — apply cutting edge machine learning and artificial
intelligence to generate realistic computer systems and assets for the purposes of
deceiving intruders who make their way into a system24
– Automated Identity and Access Management — development of an intelligent
support for identity and access management task within enterprise IT Systems with
dynamic business environments,25 and
– Automatic Assessment and Protection of Personal Information in Data Sharing —
development of an automatic tool to analyse the robustness of Personal
Information Factor (PIF) by considering the effects of re-identification attacks.
■ having developed and launched a Cyber Security Industry Roadmap in collaboration
with CSIRO Futures and the AustCyber, aimed at identifying cyber requirements for
Australia’s growth sectors.
25 https://research.csiro.au/distributed-systems-security/automated/
Data61 is also supporting Australian organisations to grow their cyber awareness and
skills, including through:
■ the Cyber for Directors program, developed in conjunction with the Australian
Institute of Company Directors (AICD) to lift digital literacy of Australian business
leaders. To date, AICD and Data61 have delivered ten courses under the program
with 1579 attendees
■ two blockchain reports developed for the Department of Treasury and Finance to
inform on the opportunities and security and privacy risks of deploying blockchain
based technologies and systems and working on a new version with Australian
Computer Society (ACS) for an industry and skilling report
■ publishing a De-Identification Decision-Making Framework, in partnership with the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to guide Australian
businesses on managing re-identification risk
■ partnering with Fintech accelerator Stone & Chalk on a number of cyber focused
initiatives including the 2017 Fintech Cyber Summit, and
■ partnering with the Silicon Valley Innovators Network (SINET) in the delivery of the
2017 and 2018 SINET61 Summit, with each Summit drawing approximately 250 high
level international and local participants.
Training and development opportunities
Data61 has provided new training opportunities for Australian to develop world class
skills in cyber security. This includes:
■ support for over 80 Data61 Cyber PhD Scholarships in collaboration with Australian
universities, and
■ Over 20 undergraduate and graduate scholarships and associated supervision effort
in relation to the Cyber Security CRC.
New technologies
To progress opportunities to commercialise new cyber technologies and solutions,
Data61 has developed around eleven cyber technologies — six in the pilot phase, two
undergoing trials, three in pre-commercialisation phase, and some already adopted and
in use by clients. Examples include:
■ working in collaboration with DST Group to developed and commercialise the Cross
Domain Desktop Compositor (CDDC) prototype, which improves productivity in
Defence and provides a means to securely access multiple isolated networks. CDDC
has won three State iAwards in SA and the National Award for R&D, and has
entered into the Defence Innovation Hub to continue the commercialisation process
■ discussions with prominent defence industry leaders on the potential to collaborate in
the use of formal methods for automated cyber assured systems verification
■ working with a large EU-based cyber security organisation to explore
commercialisation of anomaly detection techniques and user behaviour analytics for
the Enterprise market
■ working with a major international airline manufacturer on Secure and Modular
Internet of Things (SMIT) technologies, trailing Data61’s lightweight authentication
protocol and architecture for use the manufacturer’s supplier network. SMIT was
recently open sourced to benefit Australia SME for global supply chain integration.
https://www.smit-project.com/
■ working with Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Data Airlock which enables data
analytics in secure enclave and protects human investigators from harmful data, and
■ partnering with Australian company Kollakorn, to provide biometrc authentication
techniques to their CertainID product.
Examples of some of the deliverables Examples of some of the particular technologies
produced as a result of the Data61 cyber research program are showcased in boxes 2.3,
2.4, 2.5, and 2.6.
2.3 High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems
The High-Assurance Cyber Military Systems
project adopted a fundamentally different,
formal methods-based approach to enable
semi-automated code synthesis from
executable, formal specifications. Its aim was
to raise the technical bar and lower the
development cost for high-assurance cyber-
physical systems. With partners, Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Rockwell Collins, Galois Inc,
University of Minnesota, Boeing, HRL, MIT, University of Illinois, Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU), Princeton University, and US Army's TARDEC, CSIRO
embedded Data61’s world's most verified and fastest operating system kernel, seL4,
on a range of unmanned and autonomous systems. It was demonstrated that
mathematically assured software does protect against cyber-attacks.26
ULB
Beyond defence, the project provides
core technologies for protecting a wide
range of cyber-physical systems from
attacks, including civilian aircraft,
implanted medical devices, cars and
other transport systems, robots and
industrial plants. The successful
demonstration of the software formally
verified that it had reached the maturity
to be embedded on real-world systems.
This has triggered significant uptake of the technology in a wide range of industries, as
demonstrated by the number of presentations on the industry use of seL4 by various
companies at the recent seL4 summit in November 2018.27
GVR-Bot
26 The HACMS project @ Data61, see https://ts.data61.csiro.au//projects/TS/SMACCM
27 The first annual seL4 Summit was held on November 14-16, 2018 at the Hilton
Washington Dulles Airport, Herndon, see https://www.sel4-us.org/summit.
2.4 Trustworthy Systems (TS)
The TS group has achieved significant breakthroughs to resolve untrustworthy
systems by well-designed microkernels and successfully delivered tech-transfer
projects to deliver software, tools, frameworks and platforms for cost-effective
production of trustworthy systems.
The microkernels are engineered to reduce the size of kernel of the operating system
(OS) – the most critical part of software systems for codes to run in privileged mode –
to the absolute minimum. Restricted privileged execution with less LOC lowers
security risk and brings about stability for entire multitasking systems.
The main microkernels – L4 embedded and seL4 microkernels – are engineered and
produced to improve the performance and security of software systems.
L4 embedded was early adopted by Qualcomm, a leading manufacturer of wireless
communication chips for mobile phone and other devices. The kernel technology was
marketed as OKL4 and by 2008, it has achieved a deployment of greater than half a
billion units per year. A version of this kernel now protects the secure enclave of all
iOS devices.
Building on 15 years of experience with L4 microkernel, a new microkernel called
seL4 was developed. It is the first-ever operating system kernel with a machine-
checked formal, mathematical proof of absence of implementation defects. A key
limitation of traditional combination of testing, code inspection and engineering
processes that a critical system has built on for functioning, is an incomplete coverage
of all behaviours and inputs of a non-trivial systems. The TS group uses a formal,
mathematical model and proof to enable the machine-checked formal verification of a
microkernel. It allows the reasoning about all possible behaviours of a system, thereby
bringing about guarantees of absence of defects. Complementary to this development
are breakthroughs in machine-checked code-level proof of isolation properties for a
general-purpose OS kernel, worst-case execution time analysis of multitasking OS
kernel, and security disclosure of timing attacking.
The TS group continues to build on the seL4 technology as a secure foundation and
implement trustworthy systems. One highlighted effort was through the High-
Assurance Cyber Military Systems program, where the TS group collaborated with
US companies including Boeing to transition the seL4 technology to cyber-attack
resistant autonomous vehicles. Another key project using seL4 technology was
performed in Australia where the TS group collaborated with Australia’s Defence
Science and the Technology (DST) group to develop a device allowing users to
visualise information from multiple networks of different classification levels on the
same monitor.
The most significant uptake and adoption has been in the United States, with
Australia in the early adoption stage of the research and technologies.
2.5 Data Airlock
Protecting sensitive data – such as images and video captured during legal
investigations – against illicit data processing and transmission has always been
important and led to limitations of R&D in analytics of sensitive data.
To enable safe and reliable use while keeping security of sensitive data under control,
Data61 of CSIRO, in collaboration with Australian Federal Police (AFP) and
Monash University, has developed a data analytics platform called Data Airlock. The
platform keeps sensitive data in secure vaults and allows researchers to develop
manually vetted algorithms against the data in isolated environments, the airlocks.
Researchers are able to receive updates during executions and vetted outputs for
evaluation. The platform also enables partially trusted third parties to host the system
securely.
AFP has adopted Data Airlock for better identification and utilisation of sensitive
data. Other agencies from various domains such as Department of Home Affairs and
NSW Police also show their interest in uptakes of this technology in their context.
Data Airlock will be further developed by additional cryptography and differential-
privacy algorithms – especially for healthcare sector – and more adaptivity for
analytics of all types of sensitive data.
2.6 R4 – The re-identification risk ready reckoner
Data re-identification poses substantial privacy risks to individuals as well as data
owners. R4 is an information theory based risk assessment tool – developed by the
Information, Security and Privacy (ISP) group – to assist data custodians with
evaluation of levels and origins of re-identification risks for better decision making on
data and relevant risk treatments.
At R4 standard techniques including binning and perturbation are directly applied to
one or more attributes. Modified versions of these attributes and their risks analyse are
also enabled to see potential impact of transformations.
R4 is adopted to conduct privacy risk assessments for agencies such as Transport for
NSW, Department of Health and Australian Taxation Office. It is currently under
advanced licensing negotiation for commercialisation.
Outcomes
Leveraged investment into Australia’s cybersecurity preparedness
Data61 has executed numerous contracts with clients to provide commissioned work to
address industrial and agency needs. Over 2018-2020, contracted revenue for three cyber
groups has amounted to $27.9 million. In addition, the three cyber groups have received
funding from NISA of $19.8 million over three years, given the alignment of research
outcomes with the national science agenda.
Key contributors of revenue are displayed in table 2.7. Excluding NISA funding, the top
five revenue contributors are Defence Science & Technology Group, Hensoldt Cyber
GmbH, Rockwell Collins Inc, United Technologies Corporation, and The Boeing
Company Inc. They have contributed more than $20.5 million.
2.7 Major customers for FY 18-20 Revenue
Customers
Revenue
Percent of total
$
%
Defence Science & Technology Group
11 840 598
42
Hensoldt Cyber GmbH
3 197 985
11
Rockwell Collins Inc
2 165 256
8
United Technologies Corporation
1 822 367
7
The Boeing Company Inc
1 521 279
5
Cyber Security Research Centre Ltd
1 263 709
5
Australian Federal Police
1 123 000
4
Asian Office of Aerospace Research
1 013 953
4
Department of Customer Service
747 000
3
HRL Laboratories, LLC
537 058
2
Other
2 706 098
10
Total
27 938 302
100
Note: Total Revenue here includes program-level revenue of $12.2 million. Excludes NISA-Data61 funding of $19.8 million. Source:
CSIRO unpublished
Key revenue generators by program is shown in table 2.8.
With the addition of NISA funding, this level of revenue covers all investment costs in
these groups, with a combined cost recovery rate of 178 per cent, ranging from
115 per cent for Trustworthy Systems to 235 per cent for Distributed Systems Security.
2.8 Cost recovery by cybersecurity group
Program
Costs
FY18
Revenue
FY18
Costs
FY19
Revenue
FY19
Costs
FY20
Revenue
FY20
Cost recovery
FY18-FY20
$m
$m
$m
$m
$m
$m
%
Distributed Systems Security
1.58
7.84
2.96
5.55
4.72
8.37
235
Trustworthy Systems
3.49
4.19
4.18
4.90
4.19
4.60
115
Information Security/Privacy
1.85
4.40
1.85
3.33
1.96
4.56
217
Annual total
6.92
16.43
8.99
13.78
10.87
17.53
178
Note: Annual total costs include salary and operating costs. Annual total revenues include $27.9 mil generated by the cyber groups
and their collaborative program-level revenue, plus NISA-Data61 funding of $19.8 million over three years.
Source: CSIRO unpublished
Strengthened intellectual capital
The CSIRO Data61 cluster of programs has had an immediate and enduring effect on
building Australia’s intellectual capital in cybersecurity.
This occurs on multiple fronts:
■ through the research of key program team members
■ PhD opportunities afforded to new researchers, and
■ upskilling of industry to understand and manage their risk exposure.
Value of published work
Researchers involved in the Cybersecurity programs have a large volume of published
material and associated citations, which is a measure of the value of knowledge output
and built intellection capital from the programs.
A substantial amount of researcher time is dedicated to the publication of publicly
available materials and keynote speaking addresses in international public forums, which
add to the stock of cybersecurity intellectual capital in Australia.
Significant research publications and citations are summarised in tables 2.9 and 2.10.
One indicator of the effectiveness of information dissemination by CSIRO Data61
Cybersecurity researchers is the citation of published work. While this is just a subset of
the uptake of research findings, it remains indicative of the value of research outputs,
nonetheless.
In total, the Cybersecurity team account for over 162 517 citations, or 81 501 in the past
five years alone (table 2.10). On average, this is 16 300 citations every year across the
group. In line with the approach adopted by Florio, Forte and Sirtori (2015),28 the value
of citations can be deemed equivalent to the value of researcher time and the time taken
28 Florio, M., Forte, S. and Sirtori, E., 2015, ‘Cost-benefit analysis of the Large Hadron Collider
to 2025 and beyond’, arXiv:1507.05638v1, available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1507.05638
to read citations. Assuming it takes a researcher one hour to read and cite a paper,29
$844 000 is generated annually through Data61 Cybersecurity-associated citations.
29 Consistent with the assumption in Florio et al. (2015), as discussed by: Schopper, H., 2016,
‘Some remarks concerning the cost/benefit analysis applied to LHC at CERN’, Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, available at: http://isidl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/E4668-ISIDL.pdf
2.9 Significant Cybersecurity publications
Author(s)
Year
Publication
Wu, N., Farokhi,F.,Smith,
D.andKaafar, M.A.
2020
The Value of Collaboration in Convex Machine Learning with Differential
Privacy. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, San Francisco
2020 (Core A*)
Ahmed, Il-Youp, Huh,
Kwak, Oh and Kim
2020
Void: A fast and light voice liveness detection system. Usenix Security 2020,
2685-2703.
Kocher, Horn, Fogh, Genkin,
Gruss, Haas, Haburg, Lipp,
Mangard, Prescher, Schwartz,
Yarom
2019
Spectre attacks: Exploiting speculative execution, IEEE Symposium on
Security and Privacy, pp. 19-37, San Francisco, May, 2019 (CORE A*); and
InIEEE Symposium on Securityand Privacy, pages 19–37, San Francisco,
May 2019. IEEE.
Muhammed F. Esgin,
Raymond K. Zhao, Ron
Steinfeld, Joseph K. Liu,
Dongxi Liu
2019
MatRiCT: Efficient, Scalable and Post-Quantum Blockchain Confidential
Transactions Protocol. ACM Conference on Computer and Communications
Security 2019: 567-584 (CORE A*)
Ikram, M., Masood, R., Tyson,
G., Kaafar, M.A., Loizon, N.
and Ensafi, R.
2019
The Chain of Implicit Trust: An Analysis of the Web Third-party Resources
Loading. Proceedings of the 2019 World Wide Web Conference (WWW '19)
(CORE A*)
Esgin, Steinfeld, Liu, J. K., Liu,
D.
2019
Lattice-based Zero-Knowledge Proofs: New Techniques for Shorter and
Faster Constructions and Applications, Crypto, 2019,115-146 (CORE A*).
Ge, Yarom, Chothia, Heiser
2019
Time Protection: The Missing OS Abstraction. EuroSys 2019: 1:1-1:17
Lai, Patranabis, Sakzad, Liu,
J. K., Mukhopadhyay,
Steinfeld, Sun, Liu, D., Zuo
2018
Result Pattern Hiding Searchable Encryption for Conjunctive
Queries. 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications
Security (CCS) 2018: 745-762. (CORE A*)
Klein, Andronick, Kuz,
Murray, Heiser, and
Fernandez
2018
Formally verified software in the real world. Communications of the ACM,
61:68–77, October 2018
Sun, Yuan, Liu, Steinfeld,
Sakzad, Vo, Nepal
2018
Practical Backward-Secure Searchable Encryption from Symmetric
Puncturable Encryption. 25th ACM Conference on Computer and
Communications Security (CCS) 2018: 763-780. (CORE A*)
Yan, Sui, Chen, Xue
2018
Spatio-temporal context reduction: a pointer-analysis-based static approach
for detecting use-after-free vulnerabilities. 40th International Conference on
Software Engineering (ICSE) 2018: 327-337 (ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished
Paper Award, CORE A*)
Masood, R., Zhao, B.Z.H.,
Asghar, H.J. and Kaafar, M.A
2018
Touch and You’re Trapp(ck)ed: Quantifying the Uniqueness of Touch
Gestures for Tracking. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies,
pp.122-142.
Masood, R., Vatsalan, D.,
Ikram, M. and Kaafar, M.A.
2018
Incognito: A Method for Obfuscating Web Data. In Proceedings of the 2018
World Wide Web Conference on World Wide Web, pp. 267-276. (CORE A*)
Lyons, McLeod, lmatary, and
Heiser
2018
Scheduling-context capabilities: A principled, light-weight OS mechanism for
managing time. In EuroSys Conference, Porto, Portugal, April 2018. ACM
Perrier, V., Asghar, H.J. and
Kaafar, D
2018
Private Continual Release of Real-Valued Data Streams. The Network and
Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2019 (CORE A*)
Source: Tessellate 2019, Appendix B.
2.10 Publication productivity of key team researchers
Author
Program
Citations in past 5 years
h-index in the past 5
years
Liming Zhu
4 271
35
June Andronick
Trustworthy Systems
1 882
14
Gernot Heiser
Trustworthy Systems
6 749
35
Gerwin Klein
Trustworthy Systems
2 976
20
Rob van Glabbeek
Trustworthy Systems
2 214
24
Michael Norrish
Trustworthy Systems
2 243
15
Kevin Elphinstone
Trustworthy Systems
1 985
12
Carroll Morgan
Trustworthy Systems
1 552
20
Tony Hosking
Trustworthy Systems
1 641
14
Yuval Yarom
Trustworthy Systems
5 867
25
Surya Nepal
Distributed Systems Security
5 019
33
Josef Pieprzyk
Distributed Systems Security
2 696
24
Seyit Camtepe
Distributed Systems Security
2 071
21
Shiping Chen
Distributed Systems Security
1 913
19
Dali Kaafar
Information Security Privacy
2 982
31
Brian Anderson
Information Security Privacy
18 540
52
Eliathamby Ambikairajah
Information Security Privacy
2 576
23
David Smith
Information Security Privacy
3 684
25
Julien Epps
Information Security Privacy
5 192
32
Vijay Sivaraman
Information Security Privacy
2 486
28
Sanjay Jha
Information Security Privacy
2 962
27
TOTAL
81 501
Source: The CIE.
This excludes value derived from dissemination of insights through keynote speaking
addresses, which have been numerous in the last two years alone (table 2.11).
2.11 Invited keynote and plenary talks (2018–19)
Name
June
Andronick
FM 2019 keynote
SecDev 2019 keynote
Surya Nepal
Keynote/Invited Talk, Australasian Conference Information Security and Privacy (2016-18)
Keynote Speaker at 11th International Conference On Security Of Information and Networks,
September 2018 / Cardiff University, Cardiff UK.
Keynote Speaker at the International Workshop on the Internet of Things Cybersecurity and Safety,
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zeeland, July 2018.
Keynote Speaker. 5th Cyber Security Symposium, International Hotel, Wagga Wagga, July 2018.
Organised by Charles Stuart University, Wagga Wagga, Australia
Invited Panel Member. 2nd Industrial Internet 4.0 Summit. Harnessing industry 4.0 to advance
Australia’s manufacturing sector. 21-22 February 2018, SMC conference and function centre.
Keynote speaker ASWEC 2019, Adelaide
Keynote Speaker, Singapore Cyber Security R&D Conference 2019 (SG-CRC 2019).
Dali Kaafar
Invited Speaker at the Future Data Conference, November 21 2018 Sydney.
Invited Speaker at GovInnovate – October 9th-11th 2018 in Canberra.
Panelist at the IIT Panel – Sydney September 26 2018.
Panelist in the Data61 Live event, Brisbane September 18-19.
Panelist at the CIFI Conference Sydney – September 13th 2018.
Invited Speaker at the Data Privacy and Protection Conference – September 12th 2018 Sydney.
Invited Speaker at the Customer Data Privacy and Protection – September 4th–5th in Melbourne.
Panelist at SINET61 – August 1st 2018 in Melbourne.
Panelist at the Australia-Israel chamber of Commerce event on Cyber security 2017,
Plenary Talk at the Optus Data Breach Notification event 2018.
Keynote speaker in the WWW Workshop on Computational Methods for CyberSafety (Cybersafety
2017), “Measuring, Characterising and Detecting Fake Social Activity”, April, Perth 2017.
Invited Talk in the Global Summit for Future Networks, Security and Privacy of the SDN-NFV Data
Plane", April Nanjing 2017.
Webinar for the AICD Australian Institute of Company Directors. Data Privacy: What you need to
know about privacy preserving technologies and data sharing", March 2017.
Invited Talk in the Dagstuhl Seminars series, Online Privacy in the era of Facebook, Dagstuhl
2013.
Plenary Invited Talk at the 26th IEEE Annual Computer Communications Workshop (CCW 2012),
Invited Talk at the Cyber Security, Forensics and Cyber-Crime Prevention Colloquium,
“Geolocalisation of Botnet Mothership Command & Control Servers". Montreal, October 2011.
Panelist in the Cyber Security, Forensics and Cyber-Crime Prevention Colloquium, Montreal, 2011.
Invited Talk at the Workshop on Social Networks Security, “The 10 rules of Inference Techniques
from an information security perspective”, KAIST, Seoul 2011.
Invited Talk at the Forensics Lerti Seminars, “Peer to peer monitoring from your laptop”, June
2010.
Invited Seminars at several Prestigious institutes, organisations and universities including
Concordia University (2010, 2012, 2014), UC Berkeley (2015, 2016), NYU Polytech (2014), UCL
(2015, 2016), Huawei Research Centre (2012, 2013), Tsinghua University (2011, 2012, 2014),
CMU (2015).
Liming Zhu
Panelist, "Risk and Security with blockchain and DLTs", ADC Blockchain Summit, Mar/2019
Invited talk, "Distributed AI and Smart Contract: Implications to global financial stability", at
Financial Stability Board (FSB)'s Financial Innovation Network (FIN) meeting, Jan/2019, HK.
Keynote, "Distributed Trust: How Data-Driven Applications, AI and Blockchain is Impacting Service
Oriented Computing", ICSOC, Nov 2018, Hangzhou, China.
Panelist, "Best in class regulatory initiatives across the globe", Money 20/20, 2018, Hangzhou
Panelist, "Industry 4.0 and Cybersecurity", Industry 4.0 Leaders Summit, HK, Oct 2018
Talk + Panelist, "Staying Relevant in the Analytics Age", Data Analytics Seminar 2018
Panelist, "cybersecurity for medical devices", TGA workshop, Sept 2018
Guest of Honour at private luncheon, How Blockchain can help Industry, Berlin, Sept 2018
Name
Invited talk/Panelist: "Blockchain and Cybersecurity", OECD Blockchain Policy Forum, 2018
Panelist, "The Business of Blockchain", USyd business school Affinity series event, July 2018
Keynote, "How automation and artificial intelligence can digitally transform the procurement
profession", CIPS, July 2018
"Introducing Cyber-Physical Security Industry Frameworks", ASIS breakfast series, May 2018
Panelist, "Cyber Resilience: change and adapting as leaders", National Public Sector Managers and
Leaders Conference, Mar 2018
Keynote, "Automating Cybersecurity and Compliance", The Australian Cyber, Fraud and Risk
Summit, Mar 2018
Expert Witness, parliament enquires on "Growing presence of inauthentic Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander 'style' art and craft products and merchandise for sale across Australia" , 2018
Keynote, "Data Economy: the Cornerstone of Smart Business", GMIC + Sydney, Dec 2017
Panelist, "Cybersecurity: is your business prepared for the next unknown threat?", Australia-Israel
Chamber of Commerce, Nov 2017
Keynote, Intersecting fintech and cybersecurity, Nat. Fintech and Cybersecurity Summit, 2017
Source: Tessellate 2019, Appendix C.
To
o
early to estimate net benefits but the value case is clear
Data61’s Cybersecurity programs are still in their infancy, and growing as fast as their
staff capacity can sustain. With the PhD scholarships program and upskilling of industry,
cybersecurity capacity will grow, and with it, demand from government and industry to
improve cybersecurity preparedness across the country.
Data61’s Cybersecurity programs are an excellent example of an exemplar in CSIRO
research: clear causal links between research excellence and meeting the specific needs of
government and industry to address large scale challenges with potentially large scale
costs to society and economy when not addressed well.
A case study on the economic value of one of its research groups is showcased in box
2.12.
2.12 Estimated economic returns from Trustworthy Systems
A 2019 research impact evaluation of CSIRO Trustworthy Systems (TS) estimated the
triple bottom line impact of TS worldwide, and the benefits provided to Australia by
avoiding and minimising the cost of challenges to Trustworthy Systems.
Over the 2018-2028 period, it was estimated that TS research generated benefits
between $93.2 million and $275.6 million in net present value terms due to the
application of seL430 into industry, government and defence, and a reduction in the
direct and indirect costs of data breaches in Australia.
This was comprised of:
■ economic benefits from the commercialisation of the Cross Domain Desktop
Compositor (CDDC) technology, which uses the seL4's verified isolation and
information security capabilities, worth $8.6 million to $23.6 million in present
value terms depending on the level of adoption (no change in demand through to
an increase in domestic and international demand), and
■ reduced costs for data breaches in Australia, worth $84.6 million to $252.0 million
in present value terms, depending on the percent of Australian data breaches that
will be subject to adoption of seL4- enabled software systems (10, 20, or
30 per cent)
Source: CSIRO 2019a, Understanding the value and real-world impact of the Trustworthy Systems group’s research and
technology, Research Impact Evaluation, CSIRO.
30 The seL4 microkernel platform and tools include the CAmkES component platform, which
protects critical systems from software failures and cyber-attacks.
The rapid uptake of demand for cybersecurity expertise, and the leveraged commitment
to substantial funding of research points to a research program that is highly valued on
multiple fronts, with the capacity to materially impact on the resilience of the Australian
economy. The logic of the impact creation pathway for Cybersecurity is illustrated in
chart 2.13.
2.13 Key outcomes and impacts of Data61’s Cybersecurity program
Monetary value of Data61 Cybersecurity
■ $27.9 million in client revenue over 3 years for the
3 major cyber groups. With the addition of NISA
funding, results in cost recovery rate of
178 per cent
■ Income gains for supported PhD scholars in
cybersecurity
■ Productivity gains for Australian business and
government
■ Dissemination of valued research worth $870k p.a.
Improved research effort
■ Strategic research partnerships
and joint research projects across
cybersecurity community
■ Increased investment in cyber
research leveraged from external
sources
Efficient and
effective innovation
■ Insights from
shared data
■ Minimising
research
fragmentation
■ Access to larger
datasets for
analytics
■ Mission and
outcomes focused
research tailored to
specific
partner/client
requirements
■
Improved societal
outcomes
■ Safer more trusting
society
■ Increased
employment
prospects and
security
■ Increased
businesses with
cybersecurity
preparedness
■ Additional exports
■ Better policy
1 Enhanced quality and
quantity of cyber
research
3A
Discovery
begets
Discovery
7 Greater cybersecurity
awareness and
technical capacity
2 Enabled
collaborations
and partnership
mechanisms
6 Strategic relationships
built that attract future
funding and cement a
Security Innovation
Network
3 Enhanced data
analytics capabilities
with simultaneous
data protection
Geo-strategic
advantages
■ Improved bilateral
and multilateral
relations
■ Increased
opportunity for
trade and capital
flows
■ Strengthened
institutions to
protect national
and international
security
Improved
knowledge of
risk exposure,
security
vulnerabilities,
and cyber
readiness
■ Cybersecurity
skills in industry
5 Improved
international
standing and
reputation
4 Cyber and privacy
safer
technologies and
systems
Productivity gain for government and business
■ Greater adaption of cybersecurity technologies in industry
■ Minimised resources spent on identifying and resolving
cyber threats
■ Streamlined and automated processes to improve
business efficiency
■ Increased data analytics capabilities as data is more
accessible
New technologies and
solutions
■ Business systems
secured
■ Road maps to identify
root causes and
solutions
Data source: CIE.
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