Missing the Cybersecurity Mark With the Essential Eight

This commentary critiques Australia’s Essential Eight cybersecurity framework, noting that despite updates and significant national investment, it remains largely oriented to on‑premises environments and inadequately addresses cloud and SaaS risks. Using the country’s recent cyber incidents as context, it calls for modernizing the framework with directives for configuration misconfiguration management, identity security posture management, third‑party OAuth/app integration governance, and resource access control to better protect data and operations in today’s cloud‑first landscape.