Government Cyber Security Showcase Federal 2026

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 governance, strategy and risk professionals.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating both cyber-attacks and defensive capability across government. This session examines how the Commonwealth is preparing for AI-enabled phishing, misinformation, automation-driven attacks and emerging governance challenges.

• AI as a force multiplier for cyber-crime and state-sponsored activity
• Balancing AI adoption with security, transparency and accountability
• Governing emerging technologies without slowing innovation

Federal agencies are increasingly interconnected through shared platforms, cloud services, identity systems and third-party providers. This session examines how the Commonwealth is preparing for cyber incidents that cascade across government and critical infrastructure simultaneously.

• Managing systemic cyber risk across interconnected environments
• Coordinating incident response across agencies and jurisdictions
• Lessons from major global and domestic cyber disruptions

Forward-thinking agencies are moving from reactive administration to proactive strategy, putting systems in place that make good governance second nature.

• How do you maximise AI opportunities in a world of compliance and regulation. 
• How do you build governance mechanisms into the AI development process from the start.
• How do you build trust with stakeholders about AI development alongside regulatory process.

As cyber threats, geopolitical instability, AI-driven risks and supply chain vulnerabilities continue to evolve, federal agencies must move beyond reactive approaches and build the capabilities needed to anticipate, withstand and adapt to disruption. This session explores how leaders are strengthening resilience and preparedness in an increasingly uncertain operating environment.

• Identifying emerging risks and disruptions before they impact government operations and service delivery
• Building adaptive cyber resilience capabilities that support operational continuity during periods of disruption
• Strengthening preparedness through intelligence, collaboration and proactive risk management across government ecosystems

The pressure on federal agencies to modernise services, deploy AI and improve citizen experience is accelerating. At the same time, public trust is increasingly fragile and cyber incidents are becoming more visible, disruptive and politically sensitive. This session explores how government can balance urgency with resilience and accountability.

• How government can accelerate transformation without increasing systemic risk
• Where trust is most vulnerable in AI-enabled digital government
• Defining responsible innovation across the Commonwealth
• What resilient and trusted government looks like by 2030

Critical infrastructure has become a primary target for cyber criminals and state-sponsored actors. This session examines how government and operators are responding to growing threats across energy, health, telecommunications, transport and essential services.

• The evolving threat landscape targeting critical infrastructure
• Regulatory obligations under SOCI reforms and operational resilience expectations
• Strengthening collaboration between government and operators

Savithri Munasinghe Member

Head of Risk, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation

Karen Schilling

Director, Canberra Cyber Hub

Dr Gatra Priyandita Member

Cyber, Technology and Security Program, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

As federal agencies expand digital services, strengthen identity systems and adopt AI-enabled technologies, protecting citizen privacy and ensuring accessible services must remain foundational. This session explores how government can deliver secure, trusted and inclusive digital experiences while meeting growing regulatory, security and public expectations.

• Strengthening identity and access controls while protecting citizen privacy and reducing fraud risk
• Embedding privacy-by-design and accessibility-by-design into digital government services and AI-enabled initiatives
• Balancing security, usability and inclusion to maintain public trust across connected federal service ecosystems

As regulatory obligations continue to expand across cyber security, privacy, critical infrastructure and risk management, federal agencies are recognising that compliance alone does not guarantee resilience. This session explores how leaders can move beyond meeting minimum requirements to building adaptive, operationally resilient organisations capable of responding to evolving threats and disruptions.

• Moving beyond compliance-driven approaches to embed resilience across people, processes and technology
• Aligning regulatory obligations with operational preparedness, risk management and business continuity objectives
• Measuring cyber maturity through resilience outcomes, recovery capability and organisational readiness rather than compliance alone

As AI, geopolitical tensions and supply chain dependencies reshape the threat landscape, cyber leaders are reassessing their biggest risks and priorities.

• Emerging threats that are changing executive risk conversations
• Balancing innovation with security expectations
• The future role of cyber leadership in government

Federal agencies rely on an increasingly complex network of suppliers, cloud providers and technology partners. This session explores how agencies are strengthening visibility, assurance and resilience across third-party ecosystems.

• Understanding concentration risk in cloud and digital supply chains
• Moving beyond compliance-based vendor assurance
• Preparing for large-scale supplier compromise scenarios

The public sector faces both opportunity and risk with generative AI. This session explores how to set guardrails, audit AI models, and align with Australia’s emerging critical infrastructure legislation.

Data is government’s most sensitive asset. This session explores advanced approaches to encryption, classification, and data sovereignty that protect citizen trust while enabling safe data use.

Government is under pressure to innovate quickly while maintaining strict compliance. This session demonstrates how cloud security can enable speed and resilience without creating policy or compliance gaps.

Explore how zero trust frameworks can be practically implemented across departments, from legacy systems to modern cloud platforms. The session highlights lessons learned from government rollouts and vendor expertise in enabling secure, identity-first operations.

With adversaries weaponising AI, agencies must evolve their defences. This session examines how AI/ML can detect, predict, and counter novel threats faster than human-only teams.

Utilities and transport networks increasingly rely on connected OT. This session shows how security frameworks can protect critical infrastructure from AI-enabled attacks without disrupting essential services.

While the Essential 8 remains the gold standard for cyber hygiene, its implementation faces a new, non-human challenge. In 2026, the rise of "Agentic AI" and the explosion of machine identities have created a landscape where the most privileged "users" in your agency are no longer people—they are service accounts, APIs, and autonomous bots. This roundtable will dive into the practical friction of reaching Maturity Levels 2 and 3 when your administrative surface is increasingly automated.

Cyber resilience in the age of AI is about shifting from defending against isolated cyber threats to building adaptive systems that can withstand, learn from, and evolve through continuous AI-driven disruption. As AI accelerates both offensive cyber capability and defensive automation, resilience becomes less about prevention alone and more about maintaining trust, continuity, and decision integrity under pressure.

Modern cyber response is shifting from fragmented incident handling to intelligence-led, whole-of-ecosystem coordination. Instead of reacting to alerts in isolation, organisations are increasingly fusing threat intelligence, operational data, and cross-agency collaboration to anticipate, contain, and neutralise threats faster and with greater precision.

The traditional network perimeter has dissolved. Government is now borderless - spanning contractors, partners, legacy platforms, SaaS, and emerging AI systems. With the majority of breaches originating from compromised or misused credentials, identity has become the primary control point for cyber resilience.