Parliament's $40m cyber resilience upgrade targets an unsegmented network

The Parliamentary Information and Cyber Resilience (PICR) project is going ahead with a budget of about $40 million over four years. The figure was disclosed at senate estimates by Nicola Hinder, chief operating officer and deputy secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services. It had been left out of budget papers, because the funding was first provided on a not-for-publication basis due to commercial sensitivities.

The money is split across three streams of work: information assurance in government, cyber lift and Parliamentary Computing Network (PCN) activities, and the electronic security systems that underpin Parliament House. The exact split between them has not been revealed. The PCN is used by parliamentarians, senators and staff, and connects Parliament House to ministerial and electorate offices around the country.

One notable feature of the current PCN is that it is unsegmented. Ms Hinder explained that a single set of expansive permissions exists, largely shaped around the needs of parliamentarians, who must engage broadly across a variety of media. As a result, staff of all the parliamentary departments, including their accountable authorities, have had the same controls applied to them. That means a wide range of activities is permitted across the whole network.