Ministers and senior members of the public service will attend "cyber bootcamp" to be taught about internet security.

Key points: Two reports on census fail released: Senate committee report, Alastair MacGibbon review

Two reports on census fail released: Senate committee report, Alastair MacGibbon review Senate report pointed fingers at several parties, including ABS and its contractor IBM

Senate report pointed fingers at several parties, including ABS and its contractor IBM MacGibbon review called ABS's crisis communications 'impractical and poorly tested'

That was one of many accepted recommendations from a damning report into the way the 2016 census was handled by the Federal Government and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Two separate reports were released last night and were scathing in their assessment of the census failure — in everything from planning, to communications, to crisis management and disaster recovery.

One report was from a Senate committee and the other was from the Prime Minister's cyber security adviser, Alastair MacGibbon.

In many ways the MacGibbon review was more direct, to the point and critical of the incident than the Senate Committee's.

The review called the ABS's crisis communications "impractical and poorly tested", which led to "sub-optimal communication with Ministers and the public".

"The impacts of cyber security events are not well understood," the MacGibbon review said.

"There is not a shared understanding across government."

Mr MacGibbon wrote that while a distributed denial of service was a foreseeable threat, protections against such attacks were inadequate.

Ultimately the MacGibbon review came with several recommendations for the ABS specifically, and more generally the Government as a whole.

One recommendation was for senior government executives and Ministers to head to a cyber bootcamp.

"[To] educate participants about cyber security fundamentals and how to talk about issues with the public," the report said.

The Federal Government has said it would accept all recommendations, with Small Business Minister Michael McCormack saying there were lessons to be learned and improvements were necessary.

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The Senate report pointed fingers at several parties, including the ABS and its contractor IBM.

"While many parties have not lived up to their responsibilities in delivering the 2016 census, the primary responsibility lies with the Government," the report said.

The Government said it was already acting on the recommendations and that it had reached a commercial-in-confidence settlement with census service provider IBM.