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Articles by James Corera
On research security, our divisions are the real vulnerability
Scholars named in public for entanglement with a foreign regime, international research collaborations quietly binned, and institutional partnerships needing to be torn up by the government – such events are increasingly frequent. The external risks that prompt them are important to protect against, but division within the research ecosystem itself also needs to be addressed to provide a foundation of trust and security.
A prime ministerial interpreter and interpreting risk
A weekend report in The Australian has raised questions about whether the foreign university affiliations of an interpreter for successive Australian prime ministers are a national security issue. The fact that successive Australian leaders – from Bob Hawke to John Howard, Tony Abbott and Anthony Albanese – have reportedly used the same interpreter, Charles Qin, in full view of intelligence agencies, suggests the answer is no.
Legacy technology is a national security threat hiding in plain sight
The problem with legacy technology is not that organisations do not know the risks. It is that no mechanism forces a decision. Ownership is distributed across operators, boards, procurement teams, regulators and ministers until responsibility effectively disappears and unsupported systems keep running, carrying live demand, long after the last security patch. That governance failure is now a national security problem.
Five Eyes, ASIO warnings are not separate. Nor should our response be
Australians received two security assessments on separate days this week but need to see them as directly related. The first was a rare joint statement from the Five Eyes cybersecurity agency heads on digital threats and resilience in an era of AI. The second was the most operationally candid Annual Threat Assessment yet delivered by Director-General of Security Mike Burgess – focused on threats to social cohesion and national resilience.
The compliance era is over. Australia’s cybersecurity depends on resilience, not just rules
Canberra’s Horizon 2 Action Plan, released on 11 June, and the Department of Home Affairs’ March acceptance of Jill Slay’s independent review of the Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) Act are both serious attempts to move Australia from an architecture of compliance to an architecture of resilience. That shift is necessary. When Medibank was breached in 2022, the lesson was not that compliance had failed; it was that compliance had not been designed to succeed.
Philippines’ UN Loss Strengthens Case for Minilateralism
The UN General Assembly has just strengthened the case for minilateralism, the gathering of small coalitions to act when international institutions fail. On 3 June it had a chance to do what we argued for in these pages – to put on the Security Council a voice prepared to call out breaches of the rules it is charged with enforcing. It declined.
Philippines’ UN loss strengthens case for minilateralism
The UN General Assembly has just strengthened the case for minilateralism, the gathering of small coalitions to act when international institutions fail. On 3 June it had a chance to do what we argued for in these pages – to put on the Security Council a voice prepared to call out breaches of the rules it is charged with enforcing. It declined.
A General Assembly that backed international rules would put Philippines on Security Council
On 3 June in New York, the UN General Assembly faces a choice: will the institution charged with enforcing international rules include a voice that’s prepared to call out their breaches? The General Assembly will choose between Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines in filling the non-permanent Security Council seat allocated to an Asia-Pacific country. The election is for 2027 and 2028. Kyrgyzstan’s candidacy has merits, but the General Assembly should choose the Philippines.
Preparing Australia for a future of overlapping risk
Governments still organise around discrete shocks, yet the operating environment increasingly delivers continuous, concurrent and cascading pressures across economic, social, technological and environmental systems. Australia needs to shift from managing shocks to managing interacting risks, building the capacity to operate through sustained pressure rather than reacting to events that often arrive too late to contain. These pressures don’t sit in isolation; they accumulate across systems.
Australia can be region's most-trusted cloud node – if governance catches up | The Strategist
Microsoft’s A$25 billion investment in Australian AI and cloud infrastructure positions the country as a significant node in the Indo-Pacific’s trusted digital architecture. That creates a strategic opportunity – one Australia is well placed to seize.
Washington’s 2026 Cyber Strategy Normalizes Offensive Operations
The most consequential line in Washington’s new Cyber Strategy isn’t about defence.
Washington’s 2026 Cyber Strategy Normalizes Offensive Operations
The most consequential line in Washington’s new Cyber Strategy isn’t about defence. Released in early March 2026, the document makes clear that the United States intends to use offensive cyber operations as a routine instrument of statecraft, not a last resort reserved for crisis. But this is an evolution rather than a rupture. Washington has been moving in this direction for some time.
Washington’s 2026 cyber strategy normalises offensive operations
The most consequential line in Washington’s new Cyber Strategy isn’t about defence. Released in early March 2026, the document makes clear that the United States intends to use offensive cyber operations as a routine instrument of statecraft, not a last resort reserved for crisis. But this is an evolution rather than a rupture. Washington has been moving in this direction for some time.
Markets on the front line
The widening conflict involving Iran is causing shipping disruptions that are threatening global fuel supplies. But this is only the latest reminder that economic vulnerability is strategic vulnerability. It reinforces that markets are now arenas of geostrategic competition. Currencies, contracts and supply chains – once treated as neutral conduits of commerce – have become instruments of state power and, increasingly, triggers of widespread economic shock.
Iran, Iran war, CIA, regime change, data centers
IRAN WARCloud to Ground: Iran Puts Foreign Data Centers on the Front Line Published 17 March 2026 When Iranian drones struck hyperscale cloud data-center facilities in the United Arab Emirates and damaged infrastructure near Bahrain on 1 March, they did not just target military bases. They also targeted server farms. That distinction matters more than it might appear.
Cloud To Ground: Iran Puts Foreign Data Centres on the Front Line
When Iranian drones struck hyperscale cloud data-centre facilities in the United Arab Emirates and damaged infrastructure near Bahrain on 1 March, they did not just target military bases. They also targeted server farms. That distinction matters more than it might appear. For decades, data centres were treated as oversized commercial warehouses.
From energy projects to energy technology stacks: seeing risk before it locks in
Australia is experiencing a once-in-a-generation energy build-out. Offshore wind and distributed energy systems are being deployed at speed, reshaping how electricity is generated, coordinated and controlled. The urgency—driven by decarbonisation, reliability and resilience—is exposing a harder problem: infrastructure risk assessment is struggling to keep pace with the systems we are constructing. Blind spots are emerging first in electricity generation and distribution.
Securing consumer devices for classified use
NATO’s decision to approve configured iPhones and iPads for handling classified information up to NATO restricted level—without requiring special software or settings—highlights a shift in how governments approach secure mobility. The significance lies not in a consumer device suddenly becoming secure, but in the widening acceptance that commercial technology can meet national security thresholds if information security is considered in the design and development of such products.
Cloud to ground: Iran puts foreign data centres on the front line
When Iranian drones struck hyperscale cloud data-centre facilities in the United Arab Emirates and damaged infrastructure near Bahrain on 1 March, they did not just target military bases. They also targeted server farms. That distinction matters more than it might appear. For decades, data centres were treated as oversized commercial warehouses.
It’s not where buses are made. It’s how they’re controlled
A debate over Chinese-made electric buses has arrived in Australia with familiar speed. Talk of potential kill switches has prompted calls to rip and replace foreign vehicles and turn to domestic supply. But the concerns driving this debate—remote access, software control, opaque data flows—do not stop at the depot gate. They are embedded across modern critical infrastructure, from the vehicles on our streets to the energy systems powering them.
The rest of the snake - Openforum
If recent days have shown anything, it is that the United States and Israel retain the capacity to dismantle a state’s military infrastructure (and even leadership) at speed. But dismantling a regime is another matter entirely. For Australia and the wider Indo-Pacific, the point is not to emulate decapitation tactics but to prepare for a region in which authoritarian systems respond by hardening themselves for survival and striking back across every domain.
Decapitation is no silver bullet: what strikes on Iran teach Australia
If recent days have shown anything, it is that the United States and Israel retain the capacity to dismantle a state’s military infrastructure (and even leadership) at speed. But dismantling a regime is another matter entirely. For Australia and the wider Indo-Pacific, the point is not to emulate decapitation tactics but to prepare for a region in which authoritarian systems respond by hardening themselves for survival and striking back across every domain.
Beyond bombs: cyber and information operations targeting Iran’s regime
US-Israeli airstrikes may dominate the footage from Tehran, but a decisive contest is also unfolding in code: a live demonstration of how modern coercion targets a state’s digital nervous system as deliberately as its physical assets. This is not cyber replacing kinetic force. It is cyber fused with kinetic force—an integrated assault on a nation’s technology ecosystems.
Australia’s under-16s social media reform deserves refinement—not dismissal | The Strategist
Recent commentary has cast Australia’s effort at reducing under-16s’ use of social media as a technical policy stumble, a flawed experiment in age assurance and enforcement. That lens risks being too narrow. Yes, age verification is complex. Platform architectures vary. Circumvention is possible. These are genuine implementation issues. But the reform was never about building a hermetically sealed digital perimeter.
NSW Police’s drone trial: questions of risk, governance and resilience
New South Wales Police’s planned six-month trial of drones made by Chinese company DJI highlights broader considerations about management of risks associated with technologies that are owned, controlled or influenced by foreign entities. As with any new operational capability, particularly those involving data collection, it’s vital to ensure operational, legal, technical and partnership factors are adequately assessed.
Trust Under Pressure: Naming Coercion Is a Competitive Advantage
Trust Under Pressure: Naming Coercion Is a Competitive Advantage Political leaders are no longer speaking the language of seamless globalisation; they are describing a world defined by fragmentation, strategic rivalry and coercion below the threshold of war. Read Full Article »
Trust Under Pressure: Naming Coercion Is a Competitive Advantage
Political leaders are no longer speaking the language of seamless globalisation; they are describing a world defined by fragmentation, strategic rivalry and coercion below the threshold of war. They are calling out in plain terms that the era of frictionless integration is over and the era of managed competition has begun. Technology companies operate in that same environment. Their customers face strategic pressure. Their supply chains are scrutinised. Their markets are politicised.
Trust under pressure: naming coercion is a competitive advantage
Political leaders are no longer speaking the language of seamless globalisation; they are describing a world defined by fragmentation, strategic rivalry and coercion below the threshold of war. They are calling out in plain terms that the era of frictionless integration is over and the era of managed competition has begun. Technology companies operate in that same environment. Their customers face strategic pressure. Their supply chains are scrutinised. Their markets are politicised.
Cyber isn’t the whole story in Venezuela—but it’s a key takeaway | The Strategist
For Australia and the Indo-Pacific, one of the more consequential and under-recognised takeaways from the United States’ operation in Venezuela is how cyber and digital effects were integrated alongside kinetic force. After Operation Absolute Resolve, President Donald Trump openly suggested US ‘technical expertise’ was responsible for power and communications disruptions in Caracas.
Asking the difficult questions - Openforum
As naturally occurs after public violence such as the 14 December Bondi Beach terror attack, we crave clarity. Media outlets search for a single, definitive answer that might impose order on shock and loss. In Australia, that question is usually the same: was the attacker known to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation? This time we’ve seen the scrutiny also go further to retrospective examination of staffing levels and years-old resourcing decisions.
Bondi terror: when we ask the wrong questions after violence
As naturally occurs after public violence such as the 14 December Bondi Beach terror attack, we crave clarity. Media outlets search for a single, definitive answer that might impose order on shock and loss. In Australia, that question is usually the same: was the attacker known to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation? This time we’ve seen the scrutiny also go further to retrospective examination of staffing levels and years-old resourcing decisions.
Terrorism, Australia, law enforcement
BONDI BEACH TERROR ATTACKBondi Terror: Attack Reinforces the Need for Security Frameworks That Manage Risk Published 16 December 2025 The terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday should be understood not only as an act of violence but as a stress test of Australia’s security, social and policy systems. The more consequential question is what this event reveals about the community assumptions that have quietly taken hold—and what follows if those assumptions are left unchallenged.
Terrorism, Australia, law enforcement
BONDI BEACH TERROR ATTACKBondi Terror: Attack Reinforces the Need for Security Frameworks That Manage Risk Published 15 December 2025 The terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday should be understood not only as an act of violence but as a stress test of Australia’s security, social and policy systems. The more consequential question is what this event reveals about the community assumptions that have quietly taken hold—and what follows if those assumptions are left unchallenged.
Bondi terror: Attack reinforces the need for security frameworks that manage risk
The terror attack at Bondi Beach on Sunday should be understood not only as an act of violence but as a stress test of Australia’s security, social and policy systems. The immediate danger has passed. The more consequential question is what this event reveals about the community assumptions that have quietly taken hold—and what follows if those assumptions are left unchallenged.
Resilience, cyber resilience | Homeland Security Newswire
CYBER RESILIENCEShared Risks, Shared Advantage: Collaborating for Collective Cyber Resilience Published 18 November 2025 The same connectivity that powers our prosperity, and which has driven innovation and growth, has also created shared vulnerabilities and structural fragilities. We are increasingly seeing how a single weak link, often in a third-party provider, can cascade across industries, economies and borders.
Shared risks, shared advantage: collaborating for collective cyber resilience
This is the edited text of a speech to the Public Sector Networks’ Government Cyber Security Showcase Federal on 12 November 2025. It’s an honour to speak with you at a time when the foundations of our digital world are being stress-tested like never before. The same connectivity that powers our prosperity, and which has driven innovation and growth, has also created shared vulnerabilities and structural fragilities.
Technology, hardware, trust, sovereignty
TECH SECURITYBuilding Trust into Tech: A Framework for Sovereign Resilience Published 15 November 2025 Governments are facing a critical question: who can be trusted to build and manage their countries’ most sensitive systems? Vendor choices, for everything from cloud infrastructure to identity platforms, are no longer just commercial; they are strategic. Governments across the Indo-Pacific are facing a critical question: who can be trusted to build and manage our most sensitive systems?
Critical mineral, rare earth elements, mining, China
CRITICAL MINERALSEven Out of China’s Hands, Mines Still Rely on Its Equipment Published 14 November 2025 The landmark critical minerals agreement between Australia and the United States is vital to both nations’ security and sovereignty. But the agreement signed carries an inherent vulnerability. The very partnership designed to reduce China’s coercive leverage is increasingly relying on Chinese technology to give effect to its objectives.
Even Out of China’s Hands, Mines Still Rely on Its Equipment
The landmark critical minerals agreement between Australia and the United States is vital to both nations’ security and sovereignty. Like AUKUS, it is about competing with China. But to enable it we now need also to look beyond building mines and processing. This is because the agreement signed carries an inherent vulnerability. The very partnership designed to reduce China’s coercive leverage is increasingly relying on Chinese technology to give effect to its objectives.
ASIO’s step-up in warning frequency means we are less secure
The frequency with which Australia’s director-general of security now addresses the public should give us pause. Before Director-General Mike Burgess, leaders of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) rarely spoke beyond closed briefings. Today, those speeches have become annual fixtures, and are increasing in frequency.
Communication infrastructure, attacks n communication
CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTUREThe Invisible Siege: Securing the Indo-Pacific’s Telecom Backbone Published 1 November 2025 Telecommunications once seemed like the passive layer of critical infrastructure—pipes and switches that connected everything yet rarely drew attention. That perception ended long ago. The stability of countries will depend on whether they can keep the lights on and the lines open when pressure comes.
The Invisible Siege: Securing the Indo-Pacific’s Telecom Backbone
Telecommunications once seemed like the passive layer of critical infrastructure—pipes and switches that connected everything yet rarely drew attention. That perception ended long ago, particularly with the transition to 5G ecosystems. Nokia’s 2025 Threat Intelligence Report, issued on 8 October, shows how telecom networks have become targets themselves, recasting them as active domains of strategic competition and control.
The invisible siege: Securing the Indo-Pacific’s telecom backbone
Telecommunications once seemed like the passive layer of critical infrastructure—pipes and switches connecting everything yet rarely drew attention. That perception ended long ago, particularly with the transition to 5G ecosystems. Nokia’s 2025 Threat Intelligence Report, issued on 8 October, shows how telecom networks have become targets themselves, recasting them as active domains of strategic competition and control.
Australia’s digital Snowy Hydro moment is here
Australia has always thrived when it builds for the future. The Snowy Hydro Scheme—a major hydroelectricity system that remains Australia’s largest engineering project—wasn’t developed in response to crisis. It was a bold investment made early, knowing that modern industry, energy security and population growth demanded it. That project, called for by the NSW Labor government in 1949 and delivered with national resolve, became an intergenerational asset.
Building a human firewall - Openforum
Australia’s security risks are sharpest where people and technology meet. This is the space where data flows, disinformation spreads and innovation thrives—and where defences can be breached. Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy recognises that lasting protection depends on behavioural change: building trust, awareness and capability before introducing binding requirements as the system matures. This graduated model works because it recognises that evolution is continuous.
Building the human firewall: Australia’s next layer of cyber resilience
Australia’s security risks are sharpest where people and technology meet. This is the space where data flows, disinformation spreads and innovation thrives—and where defences can be breached. Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy recognises that lasting protection depends on behavioural change: building trust, awareness and capability before introducing binding requirements as the system matures. This graduated model works because it recognises that evolution is continuous.
Firebreaks for the digital age: Why Australia needs its cyber coordinator
Australians expect the government to have the authority to intervene to keep communities safe during a bushfire, flood or cyclone. The same principle should apply in the digital age, where cyberattacks can cripple hospitals, shut down ports or sever supply chains. That is why it matters the Australian parliament legislated the Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator role last year.
The case for a national resilience campaign - Openforum
The killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in the United States on 10 September should jolt us all, regardless of politics or geography. But a key question is what we are jolted into doing. Should it be permissive acceptance that the US, western society and democracy are all now in such a state of decline and division from which there is no return?
Eternal vigilance - Openforum
Yesterday’s announcement that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had directed at least two antisemitic attacks in Australia confirmed that foreign regimes are interfering in our societies. They’re doing it not just to illegally protect their domestic interests but to divide our nation.
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