A new report shows that Australian businesses need to arm themselves against hackers, warning of an impending global “cyber pandemic” that is targeting remote workers across Australia.
A study of 1,300 executives from around the world was carried out by research firm Forrester and commissioned by cyber security firm Tenable. It found that 73 per cent of Aussie businesses had fallen prey to cyber attacks carried out on remote workers in just the last twelve months.
Only 29 per cent of remote workers in Australia follow their companies’ remote work security guidelines.
“The attacks that we‘re seeing are significant,” said Tenable’s country manager for Australia and New Zealand Scott McKinnel.
“There‘s been a whole lot of risk introduced by standing up these remote applications very fast, and now they’re being compromised.
“These applications wouldn’t normally have been spun up as fast as they are, and threat actors are using vulnerabilities and misconfigurations to go in and commit cyber-based criminal activities like ransomware.”
McKinnel said that cyber security had quickly become a vital, but overlooked, element of a business’ success.
“The traditional, office-bound work model is gone,” he explains.
“Organisations in Australia need to quickly embrace a hybrid work model that allows working from home to be as seamless and secure. That also means security leaders need to adjust their approach to security to meet these challenges head-on,” he said.
“The next 12 to 24 months will truly test the grit of organisations as they navigate and secure the new world of work. It’s crucial that Australian businesses are putting the systems and processes in place to give security leaders effective visibility into the entire threat surface of the organisation.”
