How Behavioural Analytics Strengthens Compliance with Australia’s Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF)

The Australian Government’s Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) sets mandatory requirements for government entities to safeguard their people, information, and resources. As agencies rely more on digital systems, how can you meet these expectations?

Behavioural analytics is designed for a today’s hybrid environments, where threats can be human or automated. The technology learns the normal behaviour of every entity on your network and detects deviations from these established baselines to identify potential security threats other tools might miss.

From Human to Hybrid Risk

Security threats are no longer only from external attackers. The Exabeam 2025 From Human to Hybrid report shows the focus has shifted inwards. The report reveals that insider threats in all their forms are now the primary concern for most security professionals.

The title From Human to Hybrid reflects this shift. Threats now include autonomous AI agents operating within networks. When compromised or malicious, these agents can act like sophisticated insiders, mimicking human behaviour to access data, modify systems, and conceal their actions with incredible speed and scale.

• Insider threats take the lead: 64% of cybersecurity professionals now believe insiders—whether malicious, compromised, or rogue AI agents—pose a greater risk than external actors.
• A growing problem: 53% of organizations report that insider threats have increased over the past year, and 54% expect them to escalate further in the next 12 months.
• The Australian context: This trend is particularly pronounced in Australia, where 84% of security professionals expect insider risk to increase in the coming year.

This evolution requires government agencies to adopt tools designed to counter complex internal threats.

Strengthen Your Security Governance and Risk Management

The PSPF requires agencies to actively manage security risks and embed a positive security culture. Behavioural analytics helps you achieve this with:

• Proactive threat identification: Continuous monitoring of both humans and AI agents uncovers subtle anomalies, enabling agencies to move from reactive to proactive security.
• Complete situational awareness: Provides deep context into normal versus abnormal behaviour for every entity, ensuring full visibility across hybrid environments.
• Reduced alert fatigue: By distinguishing benign anomalies from genuine threats, it allows your security team to focus on high-priority risks.

Improve Your Personnel and Entity Security

The PSPF emphasizes personnel security, requiring agencies to mitigate risks from trusted insiders. Behavioural analytics extends this protection to digital entities as well.

The From Human to Hybrid report reveals a critical shortfall in preparedness. Although 88% of organisations have insider threat programmes, only 44% use behavioural analytics—the foundational capability for detecting threats in hybrid environments. Behavioural analytics closes this gap by:

• Identifying human insider threats: Analyses behavioural patterns over time to expose actions that deviate from an individual’s normal role, such as accessing sensitive data outside regular work hours.
• Detecting compromised accounts and rogue AI agents: With 93% of security professionals observing that AI amplifies insider risk, this capability is crucial. It identifies abnormal behaviour in both human accounts and autonomous agents. By baselining expected activity, it detects when an account or agent has been hijacked or is operating maliciously.

Secure Your Information and Physical Assets

Behavioural analytics strengthens PSPF governance requirements by providing proactive visibility across people, digital systems, and facilities.

• Information security: Safeguards the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your information by detecting unusual access patterns or suspicious interactions with sensitive data, whether initiated by a person or an agent.
• Physical security: Integrates with your access control systems to correlate digital and physical events. This helps detect anomalies, such as a user’s credentials being used to enter a secure facility in Canberra while the same account—or an AI agent impersonating it—logs in from another country.

Meet PSPF Mandates With Behavioural Analytics

In an environment of hybrid threats from both humans and agents, behavioural analytics is essential for PSPF compliance. The From Human to Hybrid report confirms that insider risks, whether human or automated, are a primary cybersecurity challenge.

Exabeam behavioural analytics equips agencies to identify and stop these threats. By combining advanced machine learning with security-specific AI agents, it automatically establishes dynamic behavioural baselines for every user and device. This AI-augmented operation helps your security team identify genuine threats faster, reduce analyst workload, and maintain continuous alignment with PSPF requirements.

The threat from within is growing. Get the full From Human to Hybrid report to understand the risks and learn how to build a stronger defence.