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The Australian cyber security coordinator has issued warnings, saying that Australia, while having felt the impact of major cyber attacks, is yet to suffer from a “Hollywood” movie-level incident.
Speaking at the AUSCERT Cyber Security Conference today, Lieutenant General Michelle McGuiness said that while major providers of telecommunications and other services have suffered major attacks, resulting in millions of records of data being exposed, the nation needs to prepare for a catastrophic cyber incident that cripples the nation and has long-lasting effects.
“Australia has seen the dark side of significant cyber incidents such as Optus, Medibank, Latitude Financial, HWL Ebsworth, Ramsay Health Care and Medisecure (but) we are actually yet to see a catastrophic cyber incident with impacts across multiple critical infrastructure sectors,” she said.
“We must continue to evolve and thrive to ensure that those scenes we see in Hollywood never actually eventuate.”
Referring to the recent major cyber attacks on a number of Australian super funds, McGuinness said that while financial losses were relatively small, at $750,000, cyber attacks on large organisations like the superfunds should demonstrate the importance of having strong cyber defences and to be prepared for the worst.
Data breaches on Australian organisations reached record numbers in 2024, as revealed by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) who said there had been a 25 per cent increase from the previous year.
While the OAIC received 893 data breach notifications in 2023, that number ballooned to 1,113 notifications in 2024, prompting Australian privacy commissioner Carly Kind to observe that more needs to be done to protect the personal information of Australians.
“The trends we are observing suggest the threat of data breaches, especially through the efforts of malicious actors, is unlikely to diminish, and the risks to Australians are only likely to increase,” Kind said in a statement.
“Businesses and government agencies need to step up privacy and security measures to keep pace.
“Australians trust businesses and government agencies with their personal information and expect it to be treated with care and kept secure.”
Malicious breaches and criminal activity accounted for 69 per cent of reported breaches in the year’s second half. Sixty-one per cent of these were cyber security incidents. The Australian government and healthcare providers remain the most impacted sectors, accounting for 17 and 20 per cent of all notifications, respectively.
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