ASIO boss Mike Burgess warns of foreign actors targeting defence staff amid “degraded” security concerns

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ASIO boss Mike Burgess warns of foreign actors targeting defence staff amid “degraded” security concerns

Australia’s top spy boss has issued a stark warning that Australia’s security environment will become “more dynamic, more diverse and more degraded” over the next five years.

Delivering the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment in Canberra on Wednesday, ASIO director general Mike Burgess noted foreign actors were “relentlessly seeking information about our military capabilities”.

He said the national security agency was on high-alert over espionage attempts over the high-stakes AUKUS military deal, with Defence personnel being targeted in person and online.

“Some were recently given gifts by international counterparts. The presents contained concealed surveillance devices,” he said.

Camera IconASIO boss Mike Burgess gave a grim assessment of Australia’s security environment in his Annual Threat Assessment on Wednesday. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia

Threats were also coming from countries Australia would “consider friendly,” he said, adding that AUKUS would “remain a priority target for intelligence collection”.

“ASIO has identified foreign services seeking to target AUKUS to position themselves

to collect on the capabilities, how Australia intends to use them, and to undermine

the confidence of our allies,” he said.

Mr Burgess described his threat assessment as the “most significant, serious and sober address so far,” and said Australia was facing “multifaceted, merging, intersecting, concurrent and cascading threats”.

Factors included worsening social cohesion due to conflict in the middle east, “more aggressive and reckless Russian intelligence” operations which have targeted Ukrainian supporters like Australia, and the lingering anti-authority and distrust in institutions spiked by the Covid pandemic.

The concept of truth was also “being undermined” by conspiracy theories and misinformation and disinformation, which was being inflamed by social media.

“Major geopolitical, economic, social and security challenges of the 1930s, 70s and 90s have converged,” he said.

“As one of my analysts put it with an uncharacteristic nod to popular culture: everything, everywhere all at once.”

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Camera IconMr Burgess’ Annual Threat Assessment address follows a spate of increased anti-Semitic attacks, including the firebombing of the Adass synagogue in Melbourne. NewsWire/ Diego Fedele Credit: News Corp Australia

Speaking to Australia’s national terrorism threat level, which had been raised to probable in 2024, Mr Burgess said he did not anticipate it being lowered “in the foreseeable future”.

“Politically motivated violence is raising the temperature of the security environment and making acts of terrorism more likely,” he said.

“We expect nationalist and racist violent extremists to continue their efforts to ‘mainstream’ and expand their movement.

“They will undertake provocative, offensive and increasingly high-profile acts to generate publicity and recruit. While these activities will test legal boundaries, the greatest threat of violence comes from individuals on the periphery of these organised groups.”

Mr Burgess also spoke to the increasing risk of proxies acting on behalf of foreign regimes in order to give “governments a degree of deniability”.

He also rang the alarm bell for a potential acts of “state-sponsored or state-supported terrorism,” or instances which use “criminal proxies” to conduct sabotage.

Mr Burgess said Australia wasn’t “immune to hostile nation states, such as Iran, undertaking acts of security concern on our shores or near region”.

“We shouldn’t be complacent, or consider ourselves insulated from any of these threats,” he said.

“Whether such acts serve an internal interest, or a form of retaliation against Israel or our allies, we need to remain alert and responsive to these evolutions.”

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Camera IconMr Burgess warned he would not likely lower the terror threat below probable in the ‘foreseeable’ future. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia

Mr Burgess added that to date, ASIO had identified at least three countries “plotting to physically harm people living in Australia”.

At least four countries had forced a resident to leave Australia and return to their home state through coercion or threats to their families.

“In this instance, our Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce was aided by Australians who saw what was happening and reported the matter to authorities,” he said.

“Australians have a tradition of backing the underdog. There is something to be said about the quality of a people based on what they stand up to.”

There was also an “alarming increase” in young people being targeted by ASIO counter-terrorism investigations with the median age now at 15.

Subjects were “overwhelmingly male” at about 85 per cent, and “overwhelmingly ***********-born”.

Of the 17 per cent of minors under investigation who were born offshore, the median age of the cohort for when they arrived in Australia was four and a half years old.

“The most obvious trend is that the young are getting younger,” he said.

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