A cyber assault hit an Australian consumer each second in 2024, marking a staggering twelvefold improve from the earlier yr. This surge contributed to a world cybersecurity disaster, the place 5.6 billion accounts have been compromised worldwide, equating to 176 breaches per second, in response to Surfshark.
The world whole represents a virtually eightfold surge from 2023 when solely 23 accounts have been compromised per second.
Australia’s information breach epidemic
Australia recorded 47 million information breaches final yr, up from 2023’s 4.1 million, making it the eleventh most affected nation worldwide, in response to Surfshark. On a per capita foundation, 1,785 Australian accounts have been breached per 1,000 residents, far exceeding New Zealand’s 779 per 1,000.
Surfshark, a cybersecurity agency, analysed assault information from 29,000 publicly accessible databases to place collectively its 2024 information breach recap.
SEE: Phishing Emails in Australia Rise by 30%
“On a global scale, 285 accounts are breached per 100 people on average,” Emilija Kucinskaite, senior researcher at Surfshark, stated in a press launch. “However, in Australia, this number goes up to 732 per 100 people. Statistically speaking, an average Australian has been affected by data breaches around 7 times.”
A complete of 554.5 million private data belonging to Australians have been uncovered since 2004, consisting of electronic mail addresses, passwords, cellphone numbers, bank card particulars, IP tackle, and different delicate data. On common, every electronic mail tackle was breached with three extra items of delicate information.
Indeed, over the past decade, 192.5 million Australian consumer accounts throughout totally different platforms have been compromised, and 106.9 million of those have been accompanied with passwords. This put 56% of breached customers at risk of account takeover, Surfshark discovered, doubtlessly leading to id theft, extortion, and different cyber crimes. The uncovered consumer accounts additionally consisted of 49 million distinctive Australian electronic mail addresses.
A pricey and rising risk
In 2024, the typical value of an information breach in Australia reached a report excessive of AUD $4.26 million (USD $2.77 million), representing a 27% improve since 2020. This rise is attributed to:
- More phishing assaults
- Longer breach detection occasions
- Increasing cybersecurity expertise shortages
- The rising sophistication of cyber threats
Furthermore, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner discovered that the variety of notifiable information breaches within the first six months of 2024 (527) was 9% larger than the identical interval in 2023 and marked the biggest quantity since 2020.
Major cyber assaults that hit Australia
Several high-profile breaches contributed to record-breaking figures. In April, MediSecure, an digital prescriptions supplier, suffered a ransomware assault compromising the non-public and well being information of roughly 12.9 million Australians.
SEE: National Public Data Breach: 134 Million Unique Emails Leaked
February noticed 122 million people affected by an information leak at B2B demand era firm DemandScience, which, in response to Surfshark, included 1.2 million Australians. Then, in May, IT supplier Outabox suffered a breach affecting about a million patrons of New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory golf equipment.
The world’s largest compilation of passwords to be leaked on-line was additionally found final yr, containing 9,948,575,739 distinctive plaintext entries. The credentials have been found in a file named “rockyou2024.txt” that was posted on a well-liked hacking discussion board on July 4, 2024.
Cybersecurity in 2024: a rising battlefield
The rising risk of cyber assaults is not an Australia-specific drawback, with the barrier to entry for hackers being lowered by the accessibility of AI.
The prime 5 international locations for breach quantity, from highest to lowest, are China, Russia, the U.S., France, and Germany. The prime three accounted for 46% of the world’s information breaches.
Experts warn that with out vital motion, publicity to cyber dangers will solely intensify in 2025.