Who should take action?

For most of the recommended next steps, .auCheck suggests you check thighs with your domain registrar, hosting or email provider. They are the ones looking after the settings for your website, email, connection and CMS. In some cases, however, you may have your own control panel over some settings.

The aim of .auCheck is to improve the resilience of the Internet in Australia through proper adoption of internet standards and associated international good practices. The issue is not the availability of up-to-date standards, but rather the adoption and implementation across the .au domain. This requires many different stakeholders to be incentivised to play their role.

Internet service providers

First and foremost, there is a role for internet service providers. We expect them to be at the forefront of new developments and to keep the safety and security of their customers front of their minds.

Australian governments

There is also a role for the government. Federal, state, territory and local governments ideally lead by example, and at minimum follow the advice from the Australian Cyber Security Centre. The ACSC itself equally promotes cybersecurity practices in their engagements with industry, network operators and small and medium business representatives.

Users and customers

Last but not least, we as users can strengthen our collective ‘demand’ for up-to-date internet services. That’s where the .auCheck test tool hopes to contribute and empower users of internet service to self-assess the safety and security of internet services and enter into an informed discussion with their internet service providers.

The team behind .auCheck is equally reaching out to people and organisations active in the Australian internet and advocate for the uptake of secure internet standards in Australia.

Together, we make the .au domain a more safe and secure place to connect.