The Australian Government has reaffirmed their commitment to partner with Papua New Guinea to establish cyber resilience as well as uplift cyber security in the country.
As part of this commitment, Australian Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Critical Technology, Mr Brendan Dowling, announced the establishment of the Cyber Rapid Assistance for Pacific Incident and Disasters (RAPID), a team ready to respond to cyber crises within hours of receiving a request from the PNG Government.
Ambassador Dowling said that the RAPID team has already provided support to the Governments of Tonga and Vanuatu and given tools and support needed to ensure the continued functioning of their most critical infrastructure.
The RAPID team is a PGK 68 million commitment by the Australian Government to support a cyber resilient Pacific, under the 2023-2030 Cyber Security Strategy, released in November 2023.
Ambassador Dowling also addressed the ongoing projects underway to support PNG’s transition to trusted and secure digital cloud solutions, with a commitment to expand these projects in line with PNG’s key digitisation priorities.
Ambassador Dowling agreed to provide cyber incident preparedness support and training to PNG’s state-owned enterprises in the coming months.
In an address to UPNG students, Ambassador Dowling highlighted future generations hold the key to PNG’s digital future and that Australia will ensure students in PNG have access to cyber courses and training to support PNG’s digital future.
In addition he said that Australia will continue to work closely with PNG to address the increasing rates of technology facilitated gender-based violence.
