Prime Minister Tony Abbott announces cyber security review, the first of its kind in six years

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has announced a review into cyber security to better protect the Government and businesses from online attacks.

Mr Abbott announced the review, the first of its kind in six years, during a visit to the Australian Cyber Security Centre located deep within the new Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) headquarters in Canberra.

Some of Australia's biggest companies, including Telstra, the Business Council of Australia and a US-based executive from computer security firm Cisco will work with Government technology experts to check the nation's defences against cyber attack.

The Prime Minister said as more and more people conducted their lives online, the physical security of that data and the IT network it travelled on was critical to the way Australians went about their daily lives.

"We do face threats and the threats are becoming more intense and more serious all the time," Mr Abbott said.

To highlight the threat, Mr Abbott quoted figures prepared by the Government's premier IT security agency, the Australian Signals Directorate.

It dealt with 940 significant cyber security "incidents" last year, a 37 per cent increase on the year before.

"Over half of all the private-sector organisations serviced by the Computer Emergency Response Team were the victims of cyber attack over the last 12 months," Mr Abbott said.

The review will feed into the Defence white paper and the current review into broader national security issues that is also underway.

The Government estimates that cybercrime costs Australia around $1.2 billion a year.