Government Cyber Security Showcase New South Wales

Setting the tone for the priorities and thorniest challenges facing cyber governance, strategy and risk professionals.

Setting the tone for the priorities and thorniest challenges facing cyber detection and response professionals.

Artificial intelligence is changing how attacks are launched and how government defends itself. This session explores how NSW is preparing for AI-enabled threats while safely adopting AI across government services.

• AI as both threat accelerator and defence capability
• Governing automation without slowing innovation
• Maintaining accountability in machine-driven environments

Cyber risk in NSW is now deeply interconnected across agencies, sectors and jurisdictions. This panel examines how NSW is strengthening cross-government coordination to manage incidents that cascade beyond organisational boundaries.

• Managing systemic risk across government ecosystems
• Coordinating leadership during multi-agency incidents
• Strengthening whole-of-state crisis alignment

Cyber resilience now demands executive ownership, not just technical expertise. This session explores how NSW is strengthening leadership capability to govern cyber risk alongside service delivery, reform and innovation.

• Elevating cyber to executive decision-making
• Aligning cyber with digital, risk and reform agendas
• Building leadership confidence under scrutiny

Recent incidents across NSW result in valuable lessons for other agencies. This session examines how real-world breaches are reshaping policy, investment and operational priorities across the state.

• What NSW incidents reveal about systemic vulnerabilities
• How agencies are strengthening preparedness post-breach
• Translating lessons learned into structural reform

Matthew Craft

Commander, Cybercrime Squad, NSW Police

Melissa Clemens

Chief Security Officer, Service NSW

Jacki Muir

Director ID Support, Cyber Security NSW

Cyber risk only becomes meaningful when people understand how it affects them, their colleagues and the communities they serve. This session explores practical, evidence-based approaches to making cyber threats relatable for non-technical staff and embedding awareness into everyday behaviours across large NSW Government workforces.

• Using real-world incidents and human-centred storytelling to translate abstract cyber threats into practical lessons.
• Designing awareness programs that drive measurable behaviour change rather than compliance completion rates.
• Sustaining engagement through ongoing reinforcement, leadership modelling and integrating cyber into daily workflows.

NSW government services increasingly rely on third parties and cyber incidents don’t stop at contractual boundaries. This session exposes how agencies are reshaping assurance models to stay in control when critical risk lives outside government walls.

• Seeing third-party risk before it becomes a public incident
• Moving beyond contracts to continuous, real-world assurance
• Protecting services, trust and accountability across shared ecosystems

A trusted future relies on effectively managing third-party dependencies within critical infrastructure operations, many of which remain unseen and underestimated.

To ensure resilience, we must take a comprehensive approach to security, spanning physical, cyber, supply chain, and personnel risks. In this roundtable, we will explore:

1. The current state of Critical Infrastructure and its evolving security landscape.
2. The critical impact of third-party risks, highlighting sector-specific examples and the importance of a robust risk management framework.
3. Strategies to prioritise supplier diversification, including the role of sovereign suppliers in enhancing national security.

As nationally significant operators, Critical Infrastructure providers must cultivate strong local partnerships with vendors, service providers, and industry leaders to build a more secure and resilient future.