China's actions exposed a weakness in Microsoft's email servers, according to Australian Signals Directorate chief Rachel Noble, while Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo says intelligence agencies urgently need more powers to intervene.
"We estimate in Australia that probably around 70,000 entities, companies, businesses in Australia, were using the Microsoft Exchange Server," Ms Noble said.Chinese officials have labelled the attribution as "fabricated", accusing the United States of having "ganged up with its allies to make unwarranted accusations against Chinese cybersecurity".
"The possibility of us waking up tomorrow and to be in the grip of such an attack was already last year, the year before.The legislation has been criticised as giving government agencies far too much power to take over networks, and imposing too strict a regulatory burden on companies. Mr Pezzullo told the committee the legislation would not give agencies the keys to any computer network at any time, and there would be a "dialogue" with companies.
Ms Bradshaw also cited a cyber attack on media giant Nine, which crippled the network's broadcast and publishing operations.
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