Be on guard, intelligence boss tells academics

Director-general of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation says bogus consultancies are being used to target researchers

Academics and researchers in Australia are being increasingly targeted by spies, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has warned.

In his annual ‘threat assessment’ speech, delivered at Asio’s headquarters in Canberra on 28 February, Mike Burgess (pictured) said that one particular foreign intelligence team was focusing on Australian academics. The team, from an unnamed country, has been dubbed “the A-team” by Asio.