The NSW government has appointed Marie Patane as its permanent chief cyber security officer.
Patane – former executive director of enterprise security at Sydney Metro – commenced her new role at Cyber Security NSW on 24 February where she will lead the agency “in delivering robust security strategies to protect the people of NSW and its critical systems,” a Customer Service spokesperson said.
Last year, the NSW government was advised to heighten its cyber security following more than 50 data breaches in seven months.
Patane replaces Tony Chapman who left the role last year. Since then, the position has been held on an acting basis by Andrew Karvinen. Prior to her role at Sydney Metro, Patane held key positions at The Star Entertainment Group and spent nearly 13 years at Qantas.
Cyber Security NSW provides a wide range of products, services and best practice advice and guidance to NSW government agencies and local councils. The agency works closely with ID Support NSW to lead the state’s recovery from major cyber security incidents and data breaches. It also collaborates with other Commonwealth, state and territory cyber security agencies, including the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
Patane’s appointment follows a warning last week from Australia’s top security chief of increasing threats of cyber-sabotage as bad actors “become more determined to, and more capable of, pre-positioning cyber access vectors they can exploit in the future,” said ASIO director-general of security Mike Burgess. “We are getting closer to the threshold for high-impact sabotage,” he warned.
Leave a Reply