Australia Threat Report: Extended enterprise under threat

Introduction

This research was conducted to understand the challenges and issues facing Australian businesses when it comes to escalating cyberattacks. It identifies trends in hacking and malicious attacks and the financial and reputational impact any breaches have had. It examines Australian organizations’ plans for securing new technology, for adopting cybersecurity frameworks and the complexity of the current cybersecurity management environment.

Foreword

The Australian cyber threat landscape has escalated. In this, our third Australia threat report, we find that attack frequency has reached unprecedented levels; 94% of security professionals said the volume of attacks they faced has increased. Attackers are employing a more diverse range of tactics and techniques than ever before as they bid to extort, disrupt and infiltrate organizations.

As a result, breaches are inevitable. Our research found that:

96% of Australian organizations have suffered a data breach as a result of a cyberattack in the past 12 months and the average organization has experienced 2 breaches.

The increase in attack volume has jumped from 90% in October 2019 and 81% in February 2019, demonstrating a clear upward trend. At the same time, however, the number of breaches has dropped once more, down from 3.78 in October 2019.

The considerable leap in attack frequency and sustained increase in sophistication revealed in this iteration of the report shows that, however fast Australian businesses may be adapting to the intensifying environment, the cyber threat landscape is evolving faster. 88% of security professionals say attacks have become more sophisticated, 16% of those say they have become significantly more advanced. This confirms what VMware Carbon Black Threat Analysis Unit research has been finding: adversaries are adopting more

advanced tactics as the commoditization of malware is making more sophisticated attack techniques available to a bigger cohort of cybercriminals. It’s not surprising that custom malware is the most commonly seen attack type.

Download the report to find out more.