Only 9% of Australian orgs prepared for breach

Just 9 per cent of Australian IT professionals feel that their organisation is prepared to handle a successful cyber attack such as a ransomware or supply chain attack, new research suggests.

The new ‘Zero Trust Impact Report’, prepared for Illumio by the Enterprise Strategy Group, also found that 61% of Australian respondents believe a breach is likely to become a disaster.

This may be due to past experiences, with 87% of Australian organisations that had been held hostage by a ransomware attack having been forced to pay up, either directly or through a cyber insurance provider.

According to the research, the average ransom paid in Australia from a ransomware attack was more than $247,000.

But the research also found that Australian organisations are prioritising zero trust, with 87% of respondents indicating that it is a top-3 cybersecurity priority and allocating an average of 31% of their security budget towards zero-trust initiatives.

But despite the zero-trust mantra, “assume breach”, the research found that 44% of Australian organisations still believe their organisation will not experience a breach within the next 24 months, suggesting zero-trust adoption is still in its infancy in Australia.

Indeed, as part of the research, ESG assessed where respondents fell with regard to their progress towards Zero Trust Segmentation, and then sorted the responses based on three categories of Nascent, Progressing and Pioneers.

Only 2% of organisations in Australia were included in the Pioneers category, with 72% still at the Nascent stage.

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