Asio accuses Chinese hackers of seeking access to Australia’s critical infrastructure

Mike Burgess, the Asio director general, says Australia now faces a threat of ‘high impact sabotage’. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Reuters

Australia’s intelligence agency has accused “Chinese hackers” of seeking to gain access to critical infrastructure assets, including telecommunications networks.

In a speech to a business forum in Melbourne, the director general of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, said the nation now faced a threat of “high-impact sabotage”.