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The Australian Cyber Security Centre reported that Australia is one of the most attacked countries in the world. Their report on the 2020-2021 financial year revealed that Australia is hit by a cyber-attack every eight minutes.
Despite the heightened awareness and improvement of Australian cybersecurity, the country has become increasingly vulnerable to cyber criminals. 2022 has shown an upward trend in cyber-attacks sustained by Australian companies.
Mandiant Consulting senior director Scott Deacon said that Australia became an attractive target due to several factors, such as the adoption of social media platforms, matched with very profitable and exploitable company information technology systems.
In his statement, Deacon further mentions, “There are many organisations where, once an initial compromise takes place and they knock over that first line of defence, criminals can get relatively easy unfettered access to that environment.”
Deacon also notes that many cyberattacks are focused on the healthcare and financial sectors, where cyber criminals believe these industries will give them easy money.
The 2022 annual report of the Cybersecurity Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) also shows that Australia has become an attractive target. Andrew Penn, CEO of Telstra, commented that this was brought about by the escalating geopolitical tensions paired with the shift in working model to hybrid setups where corporate firewalls do not protect most users.
Penn notes that Australian SMEs were believed to have lost over $81 billion to BEC attacks in 2020-2021, and the numbers are continuously increasing. Though the Australian Government’s Cybersecurity Strategy launched in 2020 was essential to protecting the country’s companies, Penn recommends better regulation, collaboration and assessment to safeguard the country against cyberattacks.
The IAC recommends pivotal areas of focus such as Threat Sharing, Raising Awareness, Improved Evaluation and Measurement and the Best Practice Regulation Task Force as the security of the country’s digital infrastructure is at its critical point.
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