Australia plans to protect universities from ‘foreign interference’

Australian universities will be required to work with security agencies to ensure they guard against foreign interference, Minister for Education Dan Tehan said on Wednesday.

Foreign students are worth about AU$35 billion ($23.64 billion) a year to the Australian economy, with Chinese students accounting for about a third of that figure.

After a spate of cyber-attacks and fears that China could influence research and students, Tehan said a task-force of university representatives and security agencies would be set up, Reuters reported. “Universities are an attractive target given their research across a range of fields and the intellectual property this research generates,” Tehan said in Canberra.

The task-force will ensure universities have “sufficient cyber defenses.” In June, the Australian National University said hackers had in 2018 breached its cyber defenses to obtain sensitive data, including students’ bank account numbers. Australia has not identified the culprits behind that attack.