She said cybersecurity authorities had witnessed two “profound and new” trends flowing from the war in Ukraine.
“In the last 12 months,we have witnessed the sustained integration of cyber with conventional warfare in Ukraine and the coalescence of powerful and disruptive cybercrime gangs and nation-states combining efforts in that conflict,” she said.
Rachel Noble,the director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate,which oversees the cybersecurity centre,said there were state-based actors who were “sophisticated,capable and have enormous amounts of money and people to throw at this endeavour”.
Noble last year told a parliamentary committee China’s behaviour in themassive Microsoft Exchange email server hack was equivalent to propping open the doors of thousands of homes and leaving them open for criminals to enter.
Noting the Microsoft hack,the centre’s report said “Russia was not alone in its use of cyber operations to pursue strategic interests”.
“Regional dynamics in the Indo-Pacific are increasing the risk of crisis,and cyber operations are likely to be used by state actors to challenge the sovereignty of others,” it said.
“The Indo-Pacific is at the centre of geostrategic competition,and cyber operations are a valuable tool in this contest.”
The report said some countries in the region continued to “strain the norms and institutions that govern cyberspace as a global commons”.
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“These countries have increasingly cut access to the open internet and used digital tools to repress freedoms,” it said.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia had suffered a heightened level of malicious activity,reflecting the evolving strategic competition across the globe.
The cybersecurity centre received 447 reports of ransomware attacks in the past financial year from individuals and businesses whose data had been stolen and held hostage,slightly down on the previous year but up 75 per cent from 2019-20.
The average cost of cybercrime for small businesses was $39,000,rising to $88,000 for medium-sized companies.
“Costs like these can cripple small businesses literally overnight” Bradshaw said.
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Australia was a highly attractive target for cybercrime because of its high level of prosperity,she said.
Bradshaw urged individuals and businesses to “patch” their devices by downloading recommended updates and use multi-factor authentication wherever possible.
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