BLOGS

Notifiable Data Breaches, An Update

March 23, 2020

As organisations around the world scramble to get their remote working practices and processes in place, cybersecurity should be at the forefront of people’s thinking. In trying times like these it would be naïve to think that hackers and organised crime entities are not looking to take advantage of decentralised workers that are utilising potentially vulnerable networks on top of a lax attitude towards best-practice security initiatives amidst the mayhem that COVID-19 is causing.

You only have to look at the most recent Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) Report, which collates information reported to the Office of Australian Information Commissioner from July – December 2019 to see the light; breaches are rising, the cost of them is rising, and the most prominent causes are becoming clearer.

Published on the 28 February 2020, the report details the findings on notifications made under the NDB scheme. At a glance, the numbers tell an interesting story. There was a 19 percent increase in the total number of notifications from the first half of 2019. Of the 537 notifications, 64 percent of them stemmed from a malicious or criminal attack, an increase of 2 percent from the previous reporting period. 32 percent occurred at the hands of human error, a 2 percent reduction from the first half of 2019, while system fault accounted for 4 percent of total notifications, which was the same as the previous period.

With 64 percent stemming from malicious or criminal attacks, that’s a total of 343 breaches. These targeted attacks are designed to exploit a number of common vulnerabilities across organisations in the hope of financial or sensitive information gain. Such vulnerabilities include poor endpoint security, lack of employee training and awareness, and outdated technology.

When we dig a little deeper, 67 percent of the 343 breaches occurred directly from a cyber incident, with 83 phishing scams, 24 malware incidents and 14 brute-force attacks. Add 74 instances in which the breached entity was unable to identify the specific cause and you have a significant number of compromises stemming directly from the threat landscape.

With the COVID-19 epidemic likely to bring large scale unprecedented work practices for the foreseeable future, it’s imperative for Australian organisations that they’re on the front foot with their endpoint protection strategies. And as part of an IT community that strives to deliver premium security services for our customers, HP and our partner channel is well positioned to do exactly that.

HP DaaS Proactive Security provides real-time malware protection for computing endpoints, security and threat analytics, and specialised expertise that helps organisations strengthen their security position.* As an added component to HP DaaS, channel partners can deliver services to your customers that helps them protect against, understand, and respond to threats proactively as opposed to reactively.

If you’re interested in learning more about Proactive Security and the benefits it can deliver for your customers, we have an upcoming virtual webinar where Mazi Arzanpouli – Senior Director, Security and Collaboration Services Product Management at HP Global will be doing a deep dive into the solution.

Click here to register

And to view the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) Report in full, click here.