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Australia’s cyber security sector is growing fast but still dangerously under-resourced at the highest levels.
The Australian Cyber Network (ACN) has released a first-of-its-kind, benchmark report into the state of the nation’s cyber security industry, and while some of the figures paint a picture of a growing and vital sector of the economy, others reveal a far darker truth – Australia needs to do a lot more to keep pace with rising threats.
The inaugural State of the Industry 2024 report reveals an industry that contributes $9.99 billion to Australia’s gross value added (GVA) and attracted $348 million in investment in 2024 alone. It’s also home to more than 137,000 cyber security workers and professionals.
“This report sets the baseline. It tells us where we are and what’s at stake,” Jason Murrell, chair of the ACN, said in a statement.
“We support the government’s Cyber Security Strategy. But the threat is outpacing the implementation. This is not just an industry issue. It’s a national security issue that demands national leadership.”
The report found there were more than 300 cyber companies in Australia, and more than 97 per cent were Australian-owned. That’s a positive figure, but despite that, the ACN found that 69 per cent of businesses in Australia had felt the impact of a ransomware attack.
In just the last few months, we’ve seen the Genea Healthcare data breach, funds stolen from AustralianSuper, and numerous universities notifying their staff and students that their data had been compromised. However, cyber security has been entirely absent during the current federal election cycle and was only mentioned six times – and then in passing – in the 2025 budget papers.
“This silence is a risk in itself,” Murrell said.
“Cyber is a strategic domain. It affects trust in government, the safety of citizens and the viability of supply chains. We have got the strategy, now we need the urgency, action and visible political priority.”
Cyber lawyer and ACN board member Annie Haggar said that while Australia is on the right track in a legislative sense, there is more work to be done.
“Companies must take reasonable steps to secure their systems. The question is, how many are actually doing it? Not enough is the answer, not just from the number of breaches being reported but also from recent action by Australia’s regulators in the space.
“If we want to build national resilience, we have to normalise transparency and treat cyber as a shared responsibility, not a private embarrassment. The new limited use protections in the Cyber Security Act are designed to foster a culture of disclosure, which will ultimately help us all to understand and address cyber risk as a nation,” Haggar said.
One welcome fact unearthed by the report is that more women are joining the cyber security workforce. Female participation is currently at 25 per cent, the highest figure yet reported.
“It’s encouraging to see progress in gender diversity within the cyber workforce, with women now representing 25 per cent – up from 17 per cent in 2021. This reflects both the collective efforts of our industry and the robust methodology behind this study. More importantly, this report gives us, for the first time, a complete and evidence-based view of Australia’s cyber workforce,” Professor Ryan Ko, chair and director of the Cyber Research Centre at the University of Queensland, said.
“For too long, we’ve relied on fragmented datasets and inconsistent job definitions. This is the first national baseline built on real methodology. It allows us to track not just how many people are in cyber but who they are, where they work and how that’s changing over time. That clarity is essential if we want to design inclusive pathways, identify systemic gaps and build the workforce Australia actually needs.”
The State of the Industry 2025 report was based on 30 unique datasets and can be found here.
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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