Australian small businesses warned to strengthen cyber defences

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 2 Nov, 03:02 · Archive

Australian small businesses lack resources to recover from cyber attacks, a federal inquiry has heard.

Australian small businesses face growing cyber threats but often lack the experience and resources to recover from attacks, which can cost them more than larger organisations, a federal inquiry has been told. An inquiry into cyber security for small to medium-sized businesses is evaluating their cyber preparedness and the adequacy and accessibility of guidance offered by the government.

Recent high-profile breaches have prompted the warnings, including a global PHP outage and an OpenAI agent breach into publicly available Australian government data. The Australian Cyber Security Centre recorded 82,000 attacks in the past financial year, with cyber threats to small businesses expected to continue growing.

Alexandra Hordern, regulatory and consumer policy general manager at the Insurance Council of Australia, told a House of Representatives select committee inquiry that 'Australia is closer to the start than to the finish of our digitisation journey'. She said small businesses lack the resources of larger organisations to respond and recover from attacks. Serene Davis, global head of cyber at QBE Insurance, said cyber disruptions were becoming increasingly complex and often went unreported. 'For a small business with limited capacity to absorb disruption, the impact can be quite severe,' she said. QBE market research estimated about 20 per cent of small or medium-sized Australian businesses had cyber insurance, compared with 70 to 75 per cent of large organisations.

The inquiry is also evaluating cyber insurance, which gives businesses coverage for liability relating to cyber threats and attacks.

How it is being reported

• Small firms warned to boost tools against cyber threatsRecent high-profile and increasingly frequent cyber attacks are underlining the need for Australia's business community to put up more safeguards.Perth Now · 2 Nov, 02:28
• Small firms warned to boost tools against cyber threatsRecent high-profile and increasingly frequent cyber attacks are underlining the need for Australia's business community to put up more safeguards.The West Australian · 2 Nov, 02:28

In this story: Insurance Council of Australia · QBE Insurance · Australian Cyber Security Centre · Australian Government · Australia

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