The Australian government is being targeted by a "sophisticated, state-based" cyber attack, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said.
The attacks have targeted all levels of the government, political organisations, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure, Mr Morrison said.
"We know it is a sophisticated state-based cyber actor because of the scale and nature of the targeting,” he said at a media briefing in Canberra.
Mr Morrison would not name the state responsible but said there were not a lot of state actors that could launch this sort of attack.
He said: "This activity is targeting Australian organisations across a range of sectors, including all levels of government, industry, political organisations, education, health, essential service providers and operators of other critical infrastructure."
Although the threat was constant, the Australian PM said the frequency of attacks had increased "over many months".
Mr Morrison added: "This is the actions of a state-based actor with significant capabilities. There aren't too many state-based actors who have those capabilities."
Australia's Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said advice showed no large-scale personal data breaches from the attack.
The revelation comes after Canberra determined in March last year that China was responsible for a hacking attack on Australia's parliament. Australia never publicly identified that source of the attack and China denied it was responsible.
