The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the federal agency that leads Australia’s cyber defence, has released its annual cyber threat report. Its message to business owners is blunt: cybersecurity is now a “core business risk and leadership responsibility” for every organisation, not only a technical concern.
What the report found
- ASD responded to 1,500 cybersecurity incidents in the 2025-26 year, up 20% on the year before.
- It warned businesses, governments and critical infrastructure about more than 4,400 potential malicious cyber incidents, up 80% in a year.
- Criminals and state-backed hackers are using AI to find weaknesses and launch attacks faster, and ASD says all network owners now face elevated threat levels.
- Outdated systems and devices that no longer get updates from their makers are among the biggest risks and the most attractive targets for hackers.
ASD also said organisations should put security ahead of keeping systems online. That could mean more online services are taken offline unexpectedly while they are fixed, so it is worth asking how your business would cope if a service you rely on was unavailable for a day.
A separate reminder this week
In a separate announcement, ASD said it got into the backend of a criminal operation using the Amadey malware and cut it off from 180,000 infected computers around the world, including some in Australia. That stops the criminal reaching those machines. It does not tell you whether your own computers are clean, and that is what regular checks are for.
Four practical steps
- Install updates promptly on computers, phones, routers and firewalls, and turn on automatic updates where you can.
- List any devices or software that no longer receive updates, and plan to replace them.
- Plan how you would keep serving customers if a key system was offline for a day.
- Report anything suspicious to ASD at cyber.gov.au.
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