Cyberattacks are costing Australian companies more than $2 billion a year, according to new research from University of Wollongong economics professor, Alex Frino, who will travel to the US later this year to lead research which will help companies protect themselves in future.
Professor Frino said the number of Australian cyberattacks were growing and companies have had to pay millions of dollars to be released from ransomware to regain control of their computer infrastructure. “What companies typically do is they pay the ransom and then tighten up their systems,” he said.
“All the research is American. There have been 40 studies or more published in the United States and maybe only two published outside the US and no one has looked at Australia. So, it’s a first,” Professor Frino said. “Cyber criminals attack the weakest link and by doing so, can penetrate the IT systems of other countries. As we saw in June last year, a technical error at a US internet technology company, Akamai, led to outages at the Reserve Bank of Australia, several Australian commercial banks, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and a number of US airlines.
“My ambition is to motivate the regulators of the markets to create serious policy in this area and to learn about some of the policy solutions in the United States and bring them here.”
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