Australian organisations are quietly paying hackers millions in...

Australian organisations are quietly paying hackers millions in a 'tsunami of cyber crime'

For years, Australian organisations have been quietly paying millions in ransoms to hackers who have stolen or encrypted their data.

There has been a 60 per cent increase in ransomware attacks against Australian entities in the past year, according to the government's cyber security agency, the ACSC.

• One-third of Australian organisations hit by ransomware attacks paid the ransom
• These payments, which encourage further attacks, are typically kept secret
• Experts are calling for mandatory reporting of ransom payments

To get a picture of unpublicised cyber crime in Australia, Crowdstrike surveyed 200 senior IT decision-makers and security professionals across Australia's major industry sectors.

They found that two thirds of the Australian organisations surveyed had suffered a ransomware attack in the 12-month period to November 2020.

Of those that had been attacked, one-third — or 44 Australian organisations — had paid the ransom.

The average ransom amount was $1.25 million, the survey found. That's a rough total of at least $55 million in ransom payments.

If the survey was repeated for the past 12 months, Mr Sentonas said it would show a sizable increase in the proportion of Australian organisations that have suffered attacks.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-07-16/australian-organisations-paying-millions-ransomware-hackers/100291542