Our nation’s critical infrastructure is a highly connected system – one that supports and drives our day to day operations as businesses and as a nation. However, connectivity without security creates vulnerabilities that can have immense repercussions. With this in mind, the Australian Government has announced reforms to the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act 2018 that will impose new obligations on organisations covered by the legislation to manage the security and resilience of owned assets.

On May 7, a pipeline system carrying almost half the fuel used on the east coast of the United States was crippled by a major cyber attack. The five-day shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline resulted in widespread fuel shortages and panic-buying as Virginia, North Carolina and Florida declared a state of emergency. The attack highlights how vulnerable critical infrastructure such as fuel pipelines are in an era of growing cyber security threats. In Australia, we believe the time has come to make it compulsory for critical infrastructure companies to implement serious cyber security measures.

Relativity, the global legal and compliance technology company, has acquired Text IQ, a company applying artificial intelligence (AI) to identify sensitive data.