Australian intelligence officers have revealed how Chinese-backed cyberattacks operated and exploited weaknesses in the country’s institutions. The insight comes following the ground-breaking release of a joint international statement condemning Beijing’s cyber activities. Rachel Noble, the head of the Australian Signals Directorate, said Beijing had exploited weaknesses—or “faulty locks”— in the country’s cyber defences, which left 70,000 Australian entities vulnerable to attack. “When the Chinese government became aware of those faulty locks on the doors, they went in and propped all those doors open,” she told the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on July 29. “What then happens is there were opportunities for all sorts of criminals and other state actors to pour in behind all those propped open doors and get into your house or your building,” she added. Mike Pezzullo, the head of the Home Affairs Department, said the government now needed to consider state actors playing …