INTRODUCTION
Australia Firms Are Under Cyber-Attack. On August 12th, Australian Evolution Mining reported that they had suffered a major breach. This cyber attack had lasted a week before anyone noticed, and there were many other firms that were also being attacked at the same time.
Australia has been suffering from these kinds of cyber attacks since 2022. Why would this be the case, and what is causing this? What kind of motivations do these hackers have?
Cybersecurity professionals are needed
Why is this happening? According to research done in 2022, there would be a huge surge in cybercrime, including ransom fraud, data theft, and identity theft. As Australia is hugely understaffed, approximately 30,000 cybersecurity professionals are needed over the next four years. That was two years ago.
BGH Cybersecurity firm
And it has yet to be fulfilled. Not to mention, the skill gap has been increasing. Even though John, Chief Executive of BGH Cybersecurity firm, said that the skill gap could be forecast and filled, it will require heavy lifting. As such is the case, even if the positions are filled, the skills required are yet to be. And these forecasts were quite right.
The unfilled positions 30,000 has increased over the time this huge surge of cyber crime has led to Australia many industry vulnerable to Cyber-attacky
Cyber attack breaches
Australia’s second biggest mining company, Evolution Mining, reported that it had been suffering from major cyber attack breaches. These cyber attacks have been happening since last week, and the report came out on August 12th. Although there has been no exact data or statements given out by the company, the only proper statement we have is that there have been multiple data breaches or cyber attacks. These are not the only cases; there have been many minor attacks on different firms.
Department of Cyber Security
These attacks are not new to Australian companies they have been suffering from these attacks since 2022 as we have mentioned Australia is hugely understood by the Department of Cyber Security even though many universities are working in tandem with government it has yet to have many professionals with skills that are required to properly secure a company Even Australia’s second largest move buyer operator got some sort of data breached.
According to a report, cybercrime reports in Australia have jumped nearly a quarter in a year between 2022 and June 2023.
Motivation Behind These Crimes:
There are multiple reasons why someone would engage in a cyber attack or attempt to hack a firm, company, or individual. Usually,
The primary motivation of any hacker that is trying to hack is financial, whether it be through stealing login information from corporations or their customers, or trying to get bank details to claim financial gain. Usually, financial gain is the primary motivation for hacking.
Australian companies and infrastructure
It could be due to a hacker wanting or trying to gain reputation among their peers, always testing their skills. Another major reason is espionage, whether it be from a country, a company, a competitor, etc. In the case of the Australian cyber attacks, the major blame is put on China as being the ones who are attacking Australian companies and infrastructure. According to the ASD statement, many of the state-backed cyber attacks were from China(Australia’S Evolution Mining Targeted in Latest Cyber Attack, 2024)
Russian-speaking Eastern criminals
And some of them were from Russia or Russian-speaking Eastern criminals. In May 2023, Australia joined its Five Eyes intelligence partners to name China as responsible for cyber attacks on US infrastructure. So it is not far-fetched to say that China may be responsible for these cyber attacks.(Lucas, 2024)
Some more unique DATA
Almost 94,000 reports of cybercrime were made to law enforcement by a wide range of people, from individuals to corporations. This was a 23% increase from the previous year. The costs of attacks that companies or individuals paid due to being cyber attacked increased by about 14% from the last year. According to another report, during the years 2020 to 2021,
They have lost almost $46,000 on average due to these cyber attacks. Most of these three reports came from the richer side of Australia: Queensland and Victoria. However, the largest average losses were from New South Wales, about $32,000 per cybercrime report.
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REFERENCE
Lucas, J. (2024, August 13). Gold producer Evolution Mining confirms ransomware cyber attack, says incident “contained.” ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-13/gold-miner-evolution-mining-targeted-in-cyber-attack/104218600
Australia’s Evolution Mining targeted in latest cyber attack. (2024, August 12). ThePrint. https://theprint.in/tech/australias-evolution-mining-targeted-in-latest-cyber-attack/2219998/