A wave of cyberattacks on European supermarkets last week exposed a vulnerability that extends well beyond refrigeration. For Australia, the national security challenge is protecting the interconnected critical infrastructure systems that sustain our economy, essential services and defence capability. As strategic competition intensifies, these systems are increasingly exposed to disruption by state-sponsored hacking groups that seek to exploit the connections between critical infrastructure sectors.

A supermarket refrigerator might seem an unlikely target, yet the attacks demonstrate how manipulating an ordinary piece of commercial equipment can disrupt food supplies, destroy stock and undermine public confidence. They also expose a broader vulnerability: an adversary does not need to destroy critical infrastructure to disrupt the systems on which a country depends.

New research shows why readable agent messages cannot establish secure collaboration. As the Army develops AI cyber defenders and NATO connects military and civilian networks, procurement must test what crosses each boundary, not only what each tool achieves.

Imagine a reinforcement exercise in which four AI assistants coordinate equipment checks, maintenance, movement orders and a port release. The shipment reaches its destination. Every agent reports success. Their conversations look routine. Yet a test record restricted to the maintenance agent has quietly reached the planning agent, which had no permission to see it.