Just 27% of Australian orgs disclose cyber attacks

A mere 27% of Australian organisations experiencing cyber attacks are reporting this to authorities, according to research from Cloudflare.

In a new report, the company found that 76% of IT leader respondents to the survey experienced a cybersecurity incident in the past year, with the top attack types being phishing, web attacks and DDoS attacks. Meanwhile, 37% of Australian organisations reported facing more than 10 security incidents in the past year.

But only 27% of those who had experienced an attack disclosed this to the authorities. In addition, just 43% of total respondents indicated that they were highly prepared to prevent attacks.

Nearly half (49%) of respondents reported incurring a financial impact of at least $1.5 million over the past 12 months, with 25% of small organisations suffering a financial impact of at least $3 million.

Cloudflare head of ANZ Raymond Maisano said the findings suggest that Australian businesses must invest more heavily in bracing for increasingly inevitable attacks.

“Preparedness is key, but when it comes to deploying cybersecurity solutions, we’re finding less is more and efforts need to be directed into streamlining the security architecture to improve cybersecurity outcomes,” he said.

“The increasingly complex threat environment paired with the industry-wide talent crunch needs to be met with a strong security culture that empowers business leaders, boards and the rest of the company to proactively build their awareness and approach cybersecurity holistically.”

Image credit: iStock.com/AndreyPopov