Unclassified: What the 2024 Independent Intelligence review means for Australia’s cyber sector
Synopsis
The 2024 Independent Intelligence Review may not be on your radar—but it should be. The cyber domain doesn’t exist in a vacuum—and neither does intelligence. These two communities are directly linked, and the 2024 IIR offers a rare window into how Australia is preparing for future crises, conflict, and competition.
Only undertaken every 7 years, the independent review of Australia’s intelligence community has direct relevance to the cyber workforce and cyber security generally. Behind its 67 wide-ranging recommendations is a wealth of insight into the evolving strategic environment—insights that cyber professionals can’t afford to ignore.
From innovation and talent pipelines to public trust and cyber diplomacy, this presentation will unpack why the IIR matters to the cyber mission—and vice versa. It will explore the review’s calls for deeper intelligence community and industry integration, smarter partnerships, and intelligence as a tool of statecraft. It will explain the current reshaping of the terrain on which our intelligence and cyber communities operate. And it will highlight what all this means for the Australian Signals Directorate, Australia’s premier cyber agency, and the cyber security community more broadly.
The presentation will be structured in three parts. First, it will provide a high-level overview of the 2024 Independent Intelligence Review, highlighting key findings and recommendations with particular relevance to the cyber sector. Second, it will map those findings onto current and emerging cyber security challenges—drawing connections to innovation, talent, threat response, and public trust. Finally, it will explore what the review signals for the future: from opportunities for deeper collaboration between intelligence and industry to the strategic elevation of cyber as a tool of statecraft.
For cyber leaders and practitioners, understanding the shifting strategic landscape and evolving intelligence community isn’t just interesting—it’s essential. This session will leave you with new insights and a clearer sense of where the cyber mission fits within Australia’s evolving national security landscape. Because if you work in cyber security, you’re also working in national security.