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Healthcare entities are coming under increased pressure as cyber extortion has risen by 61 per cent in Australia in the last 12 months.
New research from cyber security firm Orange Cyberdefense has revealed an alarming raft of statistics outlining a sharp rise in cyber crime impacting Australian businesses – and the numbers may just be the tip of the iceberg.
According to the Cy-Xplorer 2024 report, 97 Australian organisations have fallen victim to cyber extortion in the last 12 months, with the professional, scientific, technical services, manufacturing, and healthcare sectors bearing the brunt of the attacks.
The healthcare sector, in particular, is facing an alarming volume of attention from cyber criminals, with attacks on the sector rising by 33 per cent year on year.
However, Orange Cyberdefense’s head of security research, Charl van der Walt, said the real-world figure could be significantly higher due to underreporting. Walt believes as many as almost 160 companies have been impacted.
The reason for the surge in attacks could well be that Australia sits in a geoeconomic sweet spot, Walt said.
“Our data shows a strong correlation between a country’s GDP, its use of English as a primary business language, and the volume of cyber extortion attempts it faces,” Walt said in a statement.
“Australia is somewhat of an outlier at the moment. The country’s economy is the fourth-largest English-speaking economy in the world, yet it ranks seventh globally in terms of cyber extortion victim count. We believe that crime levels in Australia will grow until they are in line with the size of the economy relative to the US and UK.”
Walt added that “despite having the leading international taskforce to fight ransomware, attackers have not been deterred from targeting Australia”.
“What we’re experiencing on a global scale is a climate plagued with geopolitical conflicts that are constantly changing our security environment. As cyber crime, hacktivism, and state-backed hacking increasingly converge, we expect to see more attacks with a political (or blended) motive.”
Orange Business Australia and New Zealand managing director Andrew Borthwick said that the seriousness and scale of the threat facing Australia cannot be overstated.
“There is an urgent need for organisations to adopt a particular approach to technology sovereignty through a high degree of automation in ensuring agility and resilience,” Borthwick said.
“Enterprises need to have a thorough understanding of risks and prioritise vulnerability management and hyper-automation to ensure that systems are protected from potential attacks and be able to respond at speed to any breaches.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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