Australia is experiencing an unprecedented rise in data breaches, as reported by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). Their results indicate that 69% of these breaches were due to malicious or criminal attacks. This should be a huge red flag on the cybersecurity implications across all sectors.
The OAIC’s report confirms that human error is responsible for 29% of all data breaches. System failures were the cause of only 2%. This worrying trend signals an increasing weakness in the digital environment, particularly among sectors that manage highly sensitive data. Unsurprisingly, health service providers had the most reported breaches. A very close second was the Australian government. The additional sectors impacted the most are finance and insurance, legal, accounting and management services, and retail.
The report highlights the specific kinds of personal information regularly breached in these occurrences. ID and financial info Contact information ranked first on the list, followed by identity information, financial details, health information and tax file numbers. That’s because the vast majority of reported breaches impacted fewer than 5,000 people. In two cases, those breaches affected 500,000 to 1 million individuals.
Annan Boag, a pro in the field of cyber security, recognized the new level of sophistication that newly formed cyber risks now had.
“Cyber risk is increasingly sophisticated and even entities with the strongest defences may experience a data breach.” – Annan Boag
Soshnikov noted that filling security gaps in systems that are so interdependent is a significant hurdle. This is especially the case in the health sector, where a variety of data types are housed.
Given these issues, Australian Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind warned that the era of secure data is over.
“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.” – Carly Kind
She called on companies and federal agencies to do better with privacy and security protections to stay ahead of increasing threats.
We asked experts to recommend actionable measures people can adopt to shield themselves from data breaches. Professor Toby Murray explains that turning on two-factor authentication on online accounts is one of the most important protective steps we can take.
“One way to guard against that sort of threat is to make sure that you have got two-factor authentication enabled for your online accounts. And that’s something that we are seeing increasingly being offered by organisations and being taken up by consumers.” – Professor Toby Murray
He recommends not using the same password on different sites so that if you lose one password, it can’t cause damage elsewhere.
“Having different logins means that if one of your passwords is compromised, you can reduce the chance of a hacker logging in with that same password elsewhere and causing further damage.” – Professor Toby Murray
OAIC’s report is a deeply alarming reminder of the increasingly serious cybersecurity landscape Australia finds itself in. Malicious activity is increasing and we are creating more data every day. All of this combined creates an incredibly urgent need for robust security measures!
