For many pharmacy and business owners, the recent MediSecure cyber security incident has placed cyber security front of mind. The breach saw nearly 13 million individuals’ data stolen and put up for sale on the dark web. The data stolen was related to prescriptions distributed by MediSecure’s systems up until November 2023, while the national system, eRx, was not affected.
Foreshadowing this major incident was a State of Data Security: Measuring Your Data’s Risk report released in 2023. It was based on a survey of 1,600 global IT and security leaders and over 6,000 organisations and reported that Australian organisations have the highest rate of data breaches compared with those in other global markets. It also found that Australian organisations were less likely than their global peers to experience a “significant” cyber attack.
The research, conducted by leading cyber security company Rubrik, gauged the frequency of cyber incidents related to business email compromises, data breaches, ransomware attacks, insider incidents and inadvertent data exposure.
According to Rubrik, Australia’s quicker adoption of technologies, including cloud computing, is part of the story and has urged Australian organisations to review their backups to improve their cyber resilience.
The report found that approximately 8 in 10 Australian organisations experienced a cyber incident and that the data-breach rate among Australian companies was 50% higher than the global average. The report found that:
- Data breaches were the most prevalent style of attack in Australia, comprising 54% of all incidents, compared to the global average of 38%
- Business email compromise (BEC) attacks were found to be the second most common attack method in Australia, witnessed in 45% of cyber incidents, and
- Australia was a favorite target for cyber attackers partly because “it is a mature market and early adopter of cloud and enterprise security technologies.”
“As such, local organisations have been investing heavily in perimeter security for the past decade, yet Australia holds the unenviable title of leading the world in data breaches,” the report states.
“Cloud environments were the most targeted environment in Australia, though attacks were witnessed across various infrastructures due to the widespread uptake of hybrid environments in Australia.”
The report notes that the prevalence of attacks should push Australian organisations and businesses to strongly consider cyber resilience strategies — focused on business continuity and recovery after cyber attacks — in addition to prevention.
The report says that “a comprehensive backup strategy is the best defence” to ransomware attacks.
For an interactive overview of the State of Data Security (Measuring your data’s risk) Report, or to download the full report, visit Rubrik.
