Australian Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Critical Technology, Brendan Dowling, has reaffirmed Australia’s commitment to partner with Papua New Guinea to build cyber resilience and uplift cyber security, during his three-day visit to Port Moresby. As part of this commitment, Ambassador Dowling announced the establishment of the Cyber Rapid Assistance for Pacific Incident and Disasters (RAPID), a team ready to respond to cyber crises within hours of receiving a request from the PNG Government. “The RAPID team has already provided support to the Governments of Tonga and Vanuatu, ensuring critical networks are urgently remediated, and that Pacific Governments are given the tools and support needed to ensure the continued functioning of their most critical infrastructure.” The establishment of the RAPID team is approximately a K68 million commitment by the Australian Government to support a cyber resilient Pacific, under the 2023-2030 Cyber Security Strategy that was released in November 2023. As part of the visit, Ambassador Dowling also spoke to on commitment to expand these projects in line with PNG’s key digitization priorities. In recognition of the interconnectedness of critical infrastructure, and the criticality of their ongoing functioning, Ambassador Dowling agreed to provide cyber incident preparedness support and training to PNG’s state-owned enterprises in the coming months. “Whilst the increasing adoption of technologies to digitise our economies is bringing significant benefit, it is also providing opportunities for malicious actors to exploit and undermine our most critical networks and in the last 18 months we have seen clear evidence of state-based actors leveraging vulnerabilities in critical networks, in Australia and in the region.” Meanwhile, in an address to UPNG students, Ambassador Dowling highlighted future generations hold the key to PNG’s digital future and that Australia will ensure students in PNG have access to cyber courses and training to support PNG’s digital future. This is in addition to Ambassador Dowling’s commitment to continue working closely with PNG to address the increasing rates of technology facilitated gender-based violence.