Cyber attacks against Australian military networks have jumped more than doubled from the previous year, a report from the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) revealed.

The DSD is Australia's signals intelligence agency, which plays a vital information security role across government networks.

A total of 5,551 attacks have been recorded in eight months to the end of August on military networks, which equates to around 700 attacks per month.

Earlier in January, Australia’s former Defence Minister John Faulkner had said that previous year defence networks of the country encountered as many as 2,400 cyber attacks.

The Cyber Security Operations Centre identifies malicious activities carried out by foreign hanckers by using analytic capabilities and techniques.

Commenting on the issue, a DSD spokesman said, “It is reasonable to assume that intelligence services of foreign governments would seek to exploit the ubiquity of internet connectivity.”

The Cyber Security Operations Centre was established in January to provide the government security agencies with analysis of cyber attacks against country’s interests.