Bethany Alvaro 
Cyber security company Sophos has released its findings from a new global survey, noting that identity-based cyber crimes affect a staggeringly high proportion of Australian businesses and organisations.
The State of Identity Security 2026 survey found that 77 per cent of Australian ransomware victims said the incident occurred from an identity attack or identity compromise, with the average global cost of recovery for these attacks surpassing $1 million annually.
Notably, the infrastructures and industries that faced the most identity theft-based attacks were energy, oil, and gas (80 per cent) and central governments (78 per cent).
“Identity has become the primary attack surface in modern cyber security, and this data shows most organisations are losing ground,” said Ross McKerchar, chief information security officer at Sophos.
“The non-human identity problem is particularly urgent.
“AI agents are being granted privileges faster than security teams can track them, and organisations that fail to get ahead of this will find it an increasingly costly gap to close.”
The survey also reported that, among businesses facing identity theft attacks, 49 per cent said this led to data theft, and 47 per cent suffered financial losses.
Nearly half (43 per cent) of the over 5,000 organisations surveyed said that human error and human deception were cited in all attacks.
Poor management of “non-human identities” (i.e. API keys, credentials, abandoned accounts) was cited as the cause of 41 per cent of Australian victims.
Sophos said that to reduce the risk of identity-based attacks, businesses and organisations should ensure their approach to cyber security includes multi-layered, strong systems that rotate.
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