Ransomware groups thrive on the profit they gain from poor corporate accountability and a lack of cyber threat awareness, which are both unfortunately quite common in Australia.

The number of ransomware incidents affecting local organisations increased by 24 per cent in the first six months of 2021, according to data from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s (OAIC) latest notifiable data breaches report.

Not every company that is a victim of ransomware proceeds to report the incident to the OAIC, thus official statistics are far lower than the reality. The OAIC tells us there have been “a number of entities” deciding they didn’t have to notify them of a ransomware event due to “lack of evidence” that attackers accessed data.