Countering cyber attacks

When the Australian government announced during the covid-19 pandemic Australia was under cyber attack by a state based actor, it didn't take a great deal of detective work to identify the potential culprits.

Firstly, you need to ask yourself which country has both the capability and motivation to launch these cyber attacks. The state based actors with the capability and motivation include Russia, North Korea, Iran and China and without too much analysis you can narrow it down to two potential adversaries.

As China has been displeased with Australia for demanding, then succeeding in organising an official investigation into the origins of coronavirus, so there is pretty much one potential state based actor.

Ok, cyber attacks have previously been traced back to a location in China, so we need to ask ourselves, what is next? The Australian government didn't name the country launching these attacks in what can be viewed as a diplomatic protocol.

The government was sending a clear message, we know who it is but we won't yet name you in a public forum just yet. We do reserve the right to publically name and shame the regime in the future if these attacks do not stop.

Apart from the international humiliation, what options does Australia have? Is it possible for Australia to retaliate and coordinate a cyber attack on this facility? If so, what are the ramifications?

Is this an act of war? Pretty much future conflicts will include taking out assets and infrastructure and rendering them inoperative. What about another scenario, we know China has been engaging in cyber attacks and intellectual property theft of private corporations, universities and government agencies.

So, if we retaliate, what don't we target Chinese businesses, facilities such as educational institutions and scientific organisations? The question has been asked of us, what are we going to do about this?