Greater cyber resilience, support for local business and a more competitive cyber sector are the focus of the Victorian Government’s $50m Cyber Strategy 2021.

The first year of the strategy focuses on strengthening security for government online services and communications to make them safe and secure for Victorians – and the Cyber Maturity Benchmark plays critical a role in this.

The 4-year strategy will build opportunities for innovation and jobs growth, with collaboration across government, industry, and the community. It's designed to be adaptive, with new priorities coming online each year through ‘mission delivery plans’.

Victoria’s Chief Information Security Officer, John O’Driscoll, said the strategy provided a valuable roadmap for the state:

“With the Australian Cyber Security Centre finding that cybercrime is now reported every 8 minutes, and almost 30% of reports coming from Victoria, we know we need to do more to protect our state and our community.”

“There are three practical steps which every public sector organisation can take to start managing this risk: review your cyber risk using the Cyber Maturity Benchmark; engage your board and executive on this issue; and communicate your approach to all levels of your organisation.”