March 7, 2023
Given what we know about the lengths to which the Chinese Communist Party will go to use cyber technology to further its authoritarian ambitions, teaching mainland students how to hack Western infrastructure appears to be the height of stupidity. As the world rushes to decouple technologically and Chinese-made surveillance cameras are deemed too unsafe to remain in public buildings, what are our universities doing giving lessons that could potentially highlight our online vulnerabilities?
But, as education editor Natasha Bita reports on Tuesday, teaching about digital weaknesses is widespread. University lecturers admit to self-censoring courses on digital interference and administrators at major universities are not prepared to divulge which institutions they have as collaborators overseas and where they are located.
Cyber experts say the universities are sabotaging attempts to shield Australian businesses, banks and infrastructure from offshore cyber attacks. One of the historic examples given is how bad actors were able to interfere with the Ukraine power grid in the opening salvos of Russia’s invasion.
Our investigation shows some Australian universities are cashing in on partnerships with Chinese institutions to teach information technology courses that include hacking techniques. Vulnerable targets could include power networks, banking systems and government agencies holding sensitive data. Opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson is right to say the security challenges we face as a nation are hard enough already without training our potential adversaries how to do us harm.
Universities have long shown themselves to be a weak link in maintaining a strong guard against attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to infiltrate our political, business and cultural institutions. Funding of Confucius Institutes to teach Chinese culture and language is considered to be a major propaganda operation for the CCP that can compromise host universities. Twelve Australian universities have Confucius Institutes. Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson has called on Foreign Minister Penny Wong to use powers under the Foreign Relations Act to close them. Maintaining our good relations with China must not depend on giving a communist state undue influence over our major educational institutions. Neither should it involve allowing those institutions to export knowledge that can be used to cause us harm.
