Australia faces ‘dystopian’ future of cyber-attacks targeting fabric of society, Clare O’Neil says

Clare O’Neil told the Sydney Dialogue conference on Tuesday that Australia faced ‘a scale and intensity in the threat landscape that far outstrips the recent cases we have seen’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Australia must prepare for a “dystopian future” in which increasingly digitally connected cities may be “held hostage through interference in everything from traffic lights to surgery schedules”, a senior minister has warned.

Clare O’Neil said the Medibank, Optus and Latitude data breaches were only the “tip of the iceberg” in the cyber threats Australia faced in the years ahead.