Vogue Australia

CYBER SPIES

While most of us hunkered down in our homes trying to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the ravages of Covid, few would have had any idea there was an equally dangerous threat lurking right inside our own homes.

The more we turned to the digital world in an attempt to maintain semi-normal work, leisure and school lives, the more cybercriminal syndicates were able to learn about and attempt to steal from us: everything from money to confidential hospital and aged-care information, even the intellectual property for crucial local Covid vaccine trials.

One of the reasons we were – thankfully –blissfully unaware of this sinister activity is that two women were doing everything in their power to keep us and our county safe.

These two super women, who it must be said come across as remarkably approachable, normal working mums, are Rachel Noble and Abigail Bradshaw. Colloquially referred to as “the DG”, Noble is the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), while Bradshaw reports to Noble as the head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). Together they oversee an organisation of 3,000 of our brightest, most talented and diverse minds.

Speaking on Zoom from Canberra where each is based with their families, Noble and Bradshaw’s wide-ranging conversation is regularly peppered with words such as ‘malicious activity’, ‘top secret intelligence’, and James Bond-style technical tricks – devising completely new identities for their spies that includes creating photos of ‘people’ who don’t actually exist, for example – so it is initially a surprise to learn their early ambitions were far removed from the world of spies and criminal activity; Noble dreamt of being an actor and Bradshaw a music teacher.

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