Defence supply chains are a common target for state-sponsored cyber threats, espionage, and ransomware. The Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) seeks to ensure that suppliers to Defence are cyber-resilient, by implementing controls that endeavour to protect classified or sensitive information from compromise.
DISP members are now required to meet or exceed the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) Essential Eight (E8) Mitigation Strategies at Maturity Level 2 across their ICT corporate systems.
Introspectus Assessor assists organisations aiming to achieve and maintain Maturity Level 2 across the Essential Eight; especially those preparing for, or already involved in, the Defence Industry Security Program (DISP).
| Capability | How Introspectus Assessor helps organisations achieve Maturity Level 2 |
|---|---|
| Guided Assessments | Map and measure against the E8, ISM, and DSPF |
| Evidence Collection | Organise compliance evidence in one place |
| Risk-Based Remediation | Prioritise 'what' to fix and 'when' |
| Executive Dashboards | Report status and progress to leadership |
| Automatic Continuous Testing | Removes human bias and error during assessments |
The Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) is the framework used by the Department of Defence to ensure that industry partners can securely engage in Defence projects.
Industry entities who wish to apply for DISP membership are required to meet several eligibility criteria that are defined in the Defence Security Principles Framework (DSPF).
DISP Cyber Security Requirements includes the Essential Eight (E8) Maturity Model:
The Essential Eight outlines a minimum set of preventative measures that organisations need to implement within their environment. Further, while the Essential Eight can help to mitigate the majority of cyberthreats, it will not mitigate all cyberthreats. Additional mitigation strategies and controls therefore need to be considered, including those from the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM).
Maturity Level 2 focuses on proactive controls, such as regular updates, and restricting access to provide protection against many moderate-level cyberthreats.
The preventative measures required by Maturity Level 2 present a level of protection against moderate cyberthreats.
| Mitigation | Maturity Level 2 Description |
|---|---|
| Patch Applications | Security patches for internet-facing and high-risk apps (like browsers, PDF readers, Office) are applied within 2 weeks of release (or sooner if actively exploited). |
| Patch Operating Systems | Security patches for OS vulnerabilities are applied within 2 weeks, or sooner if exploited. Unsupported OS versions are not used in Production. |
| Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) | MFA is enforced for remote access, privileged accounts, and key systems. This includes VPNs, cloud apps, and administrator access to servers and endpoints. |
| Restrict Administrative Privileges | Administrative rights are strictly limited to those who need them. Separate accounts for admin and user tasks are enforced. Regular reviews of privileges are performed. |
| Application Control | Application control is implemented on workstations and servers to block unauthorised executables (e.g., .exe, scripts) and software. Only approved applications can run. |
| Restrict Microsoft Office Macros | Macros are disabled by default. Only digitally signed macros from trusted sources are allowed. Execution is limited to trusted locations. |
| User Application Hardening | Web browsers and document readers are configured to block Flash, ads, Java, and disable unnecessary features. Unsafe content types are not rendered. |
| Regular Backups | Regular Backups are performed daily, tested periodically, and stored in a segregated location (e.g., offline or immutable). Restoration procedures are proven to work. |
According to the ACSC report: ‘The Commonwealth Cyber Security Posture in 2024’, only 15% of government entities achieved overall Maturity Level 2 across the Essential Eight mitigation strategies in 2024, down from 25% in 2023. This 10-percentage point drop indicates that a significant number of entities have either regressed in their cyber security posture or have not kept pace with evolving threats and compliance requirements.
Maintaining cyber maturity requires an active, continuous approach. Without regular testing, ongoing control validation, and sustained staff awareness organisations risk drifting out of compliance and becoming vulnerable to avoidable cyberthreats such as ransomware and targeted intrusions.
Each agent compares the current patch list against what is actually installed on its device. Any gap between what has been released and what is deployed is immediately surfaced. Critically, Introspectus pays particular attention to the timing of patch deployment not just whether a patch is present, but when it was applied.
This temporal dimension is central to Essential Eight compliance, where the difference between a patch applied on day two versus day thirty can mean the difference between maturity levels, and between an environment that was protected and one that was exposed.
This combination of daily patch intelligence, severity-based filtering, agent-level validation, and deployment timing analysis gives organisations a real-time, evidence-based view of their operating system patch posture mapped directly to the ISM controls applicable to the Essential Eight patch operating systems strategy.
The visibility gap here is particularly consequential. A patch may be approved and scheduled, yet never successfully applied due to a failed deployment, a device that was offline during the maintenance window, a reboot that was deferred, or a system that exists outside managed channels entirely.
Organisations that rely solely on deployment tooling to confirm patch status are measuring intent, not reality. The ACSC is explicit on this point: organisations need to confirm patches have been applied successfully, not merely that they were dispatched.
Within the Essential Eight framework, patching operating systems is a core and non-negotiable control. The ACSC sets clear expectations: patches for internet-facing infrastructure must be applied within 48 hours when identified as critical or where working exploits exist, and within two weeks for standard releases.
Patches for workstations, servers, and network devices must be applied within one month, with tighter timeframes applying in high-threat environments. Critically, the ACSC also mandates that vulnerability scanning occurs at least daily for internet-facing systems and at least fortnightly for workstations and non-internet-facing infrastructure not to replace patching, but to confirm it has actually occurred.
From this inventory, Introspectus performs targeted web intelligence gathering. For each application identified, the platform locates the top five authoritative sources of patch and release information vendor security advisories, release notes, and vulnerability databases and retrieves that content into a central repository.
Aletheia, Introspectus’s AI analysis agent, then reads and analyses this content to extract the intelligence that matters for application patching: the latest available version, whether a release addresses a security vulnerability, the severity of that vulnerability, and all information relevant to the Essential Eight application patching requirements. This structured intelligence is mapped directly to the applicable ISM controls, producing defensible, audit-ready evidence of an organisation’s application patch compliance posture.
A critical and frequently overlooked problem is the visibility gap. Organisations may believe their applications are current when, in reality, patches have silently failed, devices have missed deployment windows, or software has been installed outside of managed channels entirely.
Without continuous inspection at the endpoint level, these gaps go undetected until an audit or, worse, a breach.
Within the Essential Eight standard, patching applications is a dedicated and non-negotiable control. The ACSC specifies clear timeframes: critical vulnerabilities in internet-facing services must be addressed within 48 hours, commonly used applications such as office productivity suites, web browsers, email clients and PDF software must be patched within two weeks of release, and all other applications within one month.
For organisations in high-threat environments, the bar is higher still. Meeting these requirements consistently across hundreds of distinct applications deployed across thousands of endpoints is not achievable through manual effort alone.