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Some of Australia's largest companies have reported data breaches
since September last year, including Optus, owned by Singapore
Telecommunications Ltd, and health insurer Medibank Private Ltd.
Latitude said personal information, including copies of drivers'
licences and customer records, of around 328,000 customers held by
two service providers were stolen.
IPH detected unauthorised access to document management systems,
which handle administrative documents, and some client documents and
correspondence, at its head office and two member firms.
After the massive cyber attack on Medibank in November, Australian
authorities tabled a new cyber-policing model in a re-energized push
to nab cyber crime syndicates that had recently affected millions of
Australians.
The effort included a partnership between the federal police and a
government agency that intercepts electronic communication from
foreign countries to police such criminal activity.
Technology experts say hackers have targeted Australia just as a
skills shortage has left companies understaffed and an already
overworked cyber security workforce ill-equipped to stop attacks.
Although the material impact of these attacks on the companies is
often short-lived and mitigated partly by insurance, they pose
potential long-term risks to companies' reputation.
"We simply leave things to insurance companies, and awareness
campaigns for many smaller sectors," said Alana Maurushat, professor
of cybersecurity at Western Sydney University.
"Our Boards of Directors have little cybersecurity training around
risk. We don't have any cybersecurity training requirements for
decision makers."
Data compiled by the government agency Australian Cyber Security
Centre (ACSC) showed 76,000 cyber incidents were reported in the
2022 financial year, a 13% increase from the year before.
ACSC was unavailable to comment on the Latitude and IPH incidents.
(Reporting by Upasana Singh and Rishav Chatterjee, Mehr Bedi and
Himanshi Akhand in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Maju
Samuel and Rashmi Aich)
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