Cyber security threat rising: report reveals Australians had $500m stolen by hackers last year

The number of cyber attacks are on the rise, putting people at risk of identity theft. A new report warns more of the same and worse next year unless more money is spent fighting it.

Cyber attacks against the state government and Melbourne Heart Group were among the biggest data breaches in Australia in the past year, a new report has found.

The details of thousands of employees and patients were harvested by hackers in the two security incidents.

The breaches are among a rising number of incidents putting people at risk of identity theft and costing the economy billions of dollars, according to the State of the Nation Cyber Report, produced by research organisation Security in Depth.

Cybercrime is on the rise in Australia, a new report has found.

The report reviewed 4067 cyber incidents in Australia in the 2018-19 financial year and found the personal information of about eight million people had been compromised by data breaches.

It said Australians lost about $500 million last year in fraudulent credit card transactions and other scams.

The overall impact on Australian businesses last year was estimated to be $6.5 billion through direct and indirect means, including money spent responding to cyber attacks and lost productivity and revenue.

The state government data breach — carried out in December 2018 by an unknown party — resulted in the work details of 30,000 public servants being stolen. It was referred to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, Victoria Police and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner.

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An attack on Melbourne Heart Group targeted the medical files of about 15,000 patients from Cabrini Hospital.

Security In Depth chief executive Michael Connory said most hackers were after money and were targeting people’s credit card details or stealing data for the purpose of extortion.

He said the majority of cybercrime was carried out by hackers in places such as Russia, Eastern Europe, China and North Korea.

He said the hackers were increasingly targeting Australia because of our “incredibly weak” cyber laws.

“We don’t have rules and regulations that other countries have. Our cyber legislation is pathetic.”

Mr Connory said Australian governments and corporations were “significantly under-resourced” and needed to be better prepared to combat cybercrime.

The report said cyber attacks could surge by 35 per cent in 2020.

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