Australian Security Insights Report

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 breaches had in what has been an unprecedented year. It examines Australian organisations’ plans for securing new technology, adopting a cloud-first security strategy, and dealing with the complexity of the current cybersecurity management environment.

Read this report to discover how senior cybersecurity professionals plan to adapt to the security challenges of the distributed workplace and evolve defences to make security intrinsic to infrastructure and operations.

Foreword

INSIGHTS FROM THE AUSTRALIA CYBERSECURITY LANDSCAPE

Rick McElroy, Principal Cybersecurity Strategist, VMware Security Business Unit

Everything is different, and yet the same.

The cybersecurity professionals who contributed to the fourth edition of our Australia Security Insights Report are in a very different position than when they answered the 2020 survey. After a year that saw the largest and fastest transformation in work patterns in history, security teams now preside over an ecosystem that is more distributed and heterogeneous than ever before.

Digital transformation programmes advanced rapidly as the cyberattack surface expanded to include living rooms, kitchens, home networks, and personal devices. The remote workforce behaves very differently to the office workforce, accessing the network at unpredictable hours as they strive to stay productive while caring for their families and following government restrictions. As a result, network traffic has changed beyond recognition. Defenders must adapt monitoring systems and trigger points, or risk leaving opportunity for threat actors to use atypical patterns to mask infiltration attempts.

Against this rapidly changing backdrop, some things remain the same: One industry that has not been disrupted by COVID-19 is cybercrime.

The frequency of attacks is high, sophistication continues to evolve, and breaches are the inevitable result.

Download the report to read more.