According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s annual Cyber Threat Report 2020-21 released last week, the ACSC received more than 67,500 cybercrime reports in the last financial year. That is a cyber-attack report every 8 minutes! Up 13% from 2019-20.

The impact of these attacks was and remains ‘substantial’ according to both the larger reporting organisations and victims. The attacks included data theft and denial of service attacks, with the big concern, that no sector of the Australian economy is immune from the impacts of cybercrime and other malicious cyber activity.

Government agencies at all levels, large organisations, critical infrastructure providers, small to medium enterprises, families and individuals were all targeted over the reporting period – predominantly by criminals or state actors.

The ACSC report identifies six key cyber security threats and trends:

1. Exploitation of the pandemic environment

Spear phishing emails encouraged recipients to enter personal credentials for access to COVID-related information or services. Criminals focused on critical services to increase the motivation of victims to pay ransoms e.g., the health care sector was a significant ransomware target.

Action: Threat mitigation that we at Anchoram Consulting recommend include ensuring your technical controls, to prevent socially engineered emails from reaching their intended targets, are reviewed. In addition training and awareness will play a major role in preventing exploitation. A Cyber Security Training & Awareness program can help build a baseline level of resilience against standard attacks, such as phishing, and improve overall cyber security awareness throughout your organisation.

2. Disruption of essential services and critical infrastructure

Approximately 25% of cyber incidents reported to the ACSC during the year were associated with Australia’s critical infrastructure or essential services. This included health care, food distribution and energy sectors.

3. Ransomware has grown in profile and impact, posing one of the most significant threats to Australian organisations

The ACSC recorded a 15% increase in ransomware cybercrime ranging from $1000s to $1,000,000s. Access to dark web tools and services meant all sorts of criminals could combine encryption with damaging reputation threats to release or on-sell stolen sensitive data.

Action: Attack simulations are designed to test the strength of an organisation’s security mechanisms by launching a simulated attack on its infrastructure. These types of tests help organisations identify, understand, and implement better technical defences against attacks with minimal disruption in their daily activities. The techniques used in an attack simulation are based on standard practices cyber criminals use to breach a network and execute a ransomware attack. By undertaking such simulations your security teams the opportunity to become battle-hardened and prepare for real attacks.

4. Rapid exploitation of security vulnerabilities

Malicious actors exploited security vulnerabilities at speed and scale, at times within hours of public disclosure, patch release or technical write ups – particularly if proof of concept (PoC) codes that identified the vulnerabilities in the systems was also released.

Action: Cyber criminals will always find new ways to exploit your organisation’s data, resources and systems. Solid patch management, a good vulnerability management program and regular security testing are critical to achieving security success. Patch management plugs the known holes, while the management program and regular testing help identify potential issues before they are exploited.

5. Supply chains

Supply chains – particularly software and services – continue to be targeted by malicious actors to gain access to a vendor’s customers.

Although the consequences of major supply chain attacks – such as SolarWinds – were not as severe for Australia, the threat from supply chain compromises remains high. It is difficult for both vendors and their customers to protect their networks against well-resourced actors with the ability to compromise widely used software products.

6. Business email compromise is a major threat to Australian businesses and government enterprises with remote workers

The average loss per successful event has increased to more than $50,600 – 150% higher than last year. Cybercriminal groups are sophisticated and organised, with enhanced, streamlined methods for targeting Australians.

Please reach out to the team at Anchoram Consulting to ensure your cyber hygiene is adequate and you have the resilience to respond and recover from any of these identified threats.