Through their rigorous training in the finer points of spycraft, ASIO agents possess a brilliance at never being seen or heard.

There are almost 1,900 of them on the domestic agency's payroll but catching a glimpse of any of them is an extremely rare event — seeing dozens in the same place, virtually impossible.

Three years ago that changed, briefly, for a small gaggle of media reporters invited into the inner sanctum of ASIO's lakeside Canberra headquarters, the Ben Chifley building, for the launch of another instalment in researcher John Blaxland's official history of spy-catching in Australia.

What struck us as casual visitor wasn't the sleek, spacious, glass-fronted, five-storey architecture, nor the layers of surveillance cameras and security barriers that had to be navigated on the way in.

It was building a profile of our modern-day spies that proved most revealing.

Stripped of phones and cameras, we visitors represented no threat to their tightly guarded anonymity, so dozens of agents moved openly and in full view through the ground floor atrium and corridors as we were ushered along.

As far as we could see in this rare moment of candid observation, ASIO was strikingly youthful, brimming with recent graduate-age recruits, very many of them female and all of them presumably tech-savvy.

In Mike Burgess, this crew of smartly dressed digital natives is about to fall under the direction of Australia's ultimate electronic intelligence warrior.

In the narrow field of suitably senior players in Canberra's intelligence community, the computing engineer's appointment was not widely anticipated but it hints that the Morrison Government rates technical expertise and a willingness to step out of the shadows as highly as the traditional espionage and military skill sets of former directors-general.

Behind the keyboard and onto counter-terrorism's frontline

Mr Burgess will be expected to build on the agency's ability to track and trace communications. ( ABC News: Ian Cutmore )

Mike Burgess's first stint at the Defence Signals Directorate was as a young electronics engineer. And after an absence of four years running Telstra's IT security, he returned to lead the re-named Australian Signals Directorate in early 2018.

The switch from ASD to ASIO means he now steps out from a professional life watching and thwarting overseas cyber activity (signals intelligence) remotely on digital screens and into a world where many of his agents are in the field alongside police, monitoring suspects plotting deadly attacks on Australian soil.

The breadth and urgency of activity in human intelligence is staggering compared to the relatively small and hardy band of cyber warriors he led at ASD.

ASIO commands an annual budget of more than $500 million, follows more than 14,000 counter-terrorism leads a year, has disrupted at least 14 plotted attacks since 2014 and gives advice on 5,500 would-be visitors to Australia who could pose national security concerns.

Digital detective and public advocate for intelligence powers

Mr Burgess said he comes to the job as Australia continues to face "serious threats". ( Four Corners: Cyber War )

Of course, ASIO is no stranger to cyber snooping activities onshore.

It's already a heavy user of interception warrants to obtain data on suspects and spies, in addition to communications metadata and the more secretive "James Bond"-style devices and surveillance techniques that are never publicly declared.

Mike Burgess will be expected to build on the agency's ability to track and trace communications in an internet environment where the line between domestic and foreign data isn't always clear.

As he told an ASPI dinner as ASD boss: "The internet makes it very easy for our targets to use technology to deliberately obscure their location. They are also harder to find as a result of the volume and complexity of the internet."

"Indeed, for most internet-based communications, someone's geographic location is often difficult to discern, regardless of whether the user is trying to evade detection or not," he said.

The steady trend in national security over the last decade and more has been the constant request for more powers to strengthen the ability of agencies to track terrorists and agents of foreign influence who may seek to evade their detection.

Hemmed in by their extraordinary powers and secrecy provisions, spy chiefs have tended to be very reserved and of little assistance to their ministers in publicly explaining the threats they're trying to counter and the justification for the laws they want.

On this score, intelligence community watchers say Mr Burgess has been far less reluctant to argue his case in the public domain.

Mr Burgess takes over from Duncan Lewis, who is retiring after five years in the role. ( ABC News: Marco Catalano )

At ASD, he deliberately revealed the 'offensive' cyber operations waged by his team against the Daesh/Islamic State group's foreign terrorist fighters in the Middle East, publicly declared he was intent on bringing signals intelligence "out of the shadows" and even took ASD out into the "Twitter-sphere" with its own maiden message cheekily tweeting; "Hi internet, ASD here. Long-time listener, first-time caller."

Sources have told the ABC that without breaching the tight legal limits on ASIO's activities, the Government will have some expectation that Mr Burgess will bring his brand of public advocacy to the fore if and when further powers are sought from the Parliament.

Chinese interference high on Burgess agenda

Using his technical expertise in digital communications, Mike Burgess's advice was pivotal in convincing Cabinet's National Security Committee to ban Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE from 5G mobile networks.

The decision was, and remains, a major irritant in Australia's deteriorating relationship with Beijing.

In appointing him to the most powerful security and intelligence role in the country, the Government is sending a signal to China that the ban will stand, despite Huawei's public lobbying to have it relaxed or overturned.

"The threat in Australia from espionage and foreign interference is very real, very serious and ASIO works tirelessly — and my role will be to continue that important work — to identify foreign interference and espionage, to make sure Australians and Australia's way of life is secure," Mr Burgess stressed in his introductory media conference when asked about China.