‘Hive of spies’ trying to steal sensitive information removed from Australia, Asio chief says

Australian security officials say they have "removed from the country" a major spy network - including some members working undercover for years - that was trying to steal sensitive information.

Mike Burgess, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, boasted of the removal of what he called a "hive of spies" as he declared his agency was taking a "more aggressive counterespionage posture".

He also stated that an unnamed foreign intelligence service had plotted to lure a critic of that country's regime to travel outside Australia so the individual could be "disposed of" - one of two examples of possible attempts to physically harm members of diaspora communities.

Delivering his annual threat assessment speech in Canberra on Tuesday evening, Burgess also:

While terrorism is an ongoing threat, Burgess said Australia was facing "an unprecedented challenge from espionage and foreign interference" and said it "feels like hand-to-hand combat".

He said he was not convinced that Australia, as a nation, "fully appreciate[s] the damage it (espionage and foreign interference) inflicts on Australia's security, democracy, sovereignty, economy and social fabric".

Burgess said his agency had detected and disrupted a major spy network in the last 12 months. He said the group was "bigger and more dangerous" than the "nest of spies" he talked about disrupting in 2020.

Burgess said the spies from an unnamed country were undeclared - working undercover - and some of them were put in place years earlier. Proxies and agents, he said, were recruited as part of a wider network.

Burgess said the spies "used sophisticated tradecraft to try to disguise their activities" and wanted to steal sensitive information and carry out "other malicious activities". He would not go into more detail "because the foreign intelligence service is still trying to unpick exactly what and how we knew about its activities".

"They were good - but Asio was better. We watched them. We mapped their activities. We mounted an intense and sustained campaign of operational activity. We confronted them. And working with our partners, we removed them from this country, privately and professionally. The hive is history."

Burgess said one of the reasons he was disclosing the successful operation was because "as we progress Aukus, it's critical that our allies know we can keep our secrets and keep their secrets".

Burgess also stated that his agency had recently "detected and defeated attempts by intelligence services from two different countries to physically harm Australian residents".

Burgess said both plots were stopped before harm could be done, adding that Asio had "zero tolerance for this despicable behaviour".

The speech comes a week after the home affairs minister, Clare O'Neil, said Asio had disrupted a foreign interference plot by Iran that was targeting an Iranian-Australian on Australian soil. O'Neil also said foreign interference was "a China problem" but not exclusively so.

Burgess did not name the countries involved, but said foreign intelligence services were "actively trying to recruit Australian insiders with access to personal information that will help repress critics of overseas regimes".

"In the last year, we have identified multiple spies from multiple countries developing and trying to leverage relationships with government officials, bank workers, doctors, police employees and other professions to obtain the personal details of perceived dissidents," Burgess said.

He said a small number of Australian judicial figures had been subjected to suspicious approaches in the last year. Even though Asio was yet to conclusively determine they had been targeted by foreign intelligence services, "we do know spies want insights into court cases relevant to their governments".

Burgess said security agencies had "seen repeated attempts to hack into scores of Australian media outlets - so many, it appears to be a concerted campaign", in part to gain early warning of stories relevant to the foreign government and to unmask sources, particularly critical ones.

He said journalists, producers and commentators had been targeted in person, including by spies using diplomatic or journalistic cover. He said Asio had stopped a plot, before it was executed, to exploit and potentially recruit senior Australian journalists.

This plot allegedly involved a foreign intelligence service using a "lackey to do its dirty work". This person was "well connected and well regarded in business and political circles, Australian-born and not publicly associated with the overseas government, but all too willing to put its interests ahead of Australia's".

Burgess said the person "drew up a list of influential journalists and planned to offer them all-expenses-paid 'study tours' of the foreign country" where the reporters would be introduced to "local officials" who were really spies in disguise. The study tour was disrupted before it went ahead.

He said defence employees were "approached in a Canberra bar by two women who wanted to know everything there is to know about Pine Gap" but "fortunately the defence employees resisted and reported the approach".

But Burgess said an analyst in Australia's intelligence community had been outwitted by undeclared intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover. He said the analyst - when confronted by Asio - was "shocked and claimed not to have shared anything of value".

"So Asio showed the analyst the intelligence reports written by the foreign spies. The analyst could not believe how much had been gleaned out of what felt like casual conversation."