Leaders are to blame for cyber breaches, Australians say

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Leaders are to blame for cyber breaches, Australians say

Australians are demanding that corporate executives be held accountable for data breaches, according to new research from Palo Alto Networks.

The results revealed that 50% of Australians think directors or administrators should be blamed, while 92% of Australians think someone should be blamed.

A smaller 44 percent think front-end IT workers are at fault.

However, as Sean Duca, vice president of Palo Alto Networks and regional director of security for APJ, says, a security breach is more than just a fault of people or teams.

Cybersecurity is truly an organization-wide effort.

Seven in 10 Australians believe leaders are often not held accountable enough, and 67% believe they should face significant fines or jail time if they fail to prepare their organization’s cyber defenses properly.

IT and security teams can be on the tools, but there’s a cap on how strong an organization’s cyber defenses are and that’s set by management, Duca added.

It’s one thing to invest in the right tools, but to truly protect an organization, you need to have the right processes in place at all levels. Education is also key, but it goes beyond a one-time seminar in addition to regular training, employees need to have cybersecurity prioritized across the business in order to maintain good security hygiene.

DISCOVER

In ransomware cases, just over half (53%) think an organization shouldn’t pay bad actors to get out of cyberattacks.

It’s also a stance taken by the federal government, which has strongly shown its support for the hackers’ ransom holdback in the Medibank breach case.

On the one hand, there is no guarantee that a hacker will actually fulfill their end of the bargain and remove or remove any published information and paying a cybercriminal organization in the event of a ransomware breach will only reward the crime.

As the top cybersecurity spenders, individuals trust banks the most to keep their information secure, while healthcare is just as trustworthy, despite the recent Medibank breach.

Australian banks are among the most digitally advanced in the world and invest heavily in cybersecurity, so it’s no surprise that Australians trust them more than any other type of business, Duca said.

What was surprising was that the majority of Australians trust healthcare organisations, given the sensitivity of the data they hold and the sector’s historical underinvestment in cybersecurity.

Perhaps the fact that these are two of the most regulated industries gives Australians some level of comfort that they would provide adequate cover.

Technology, social media and retail are the least trusted at 27%, 33% and 34%, respectively. Only half of individuals trust government institutions to secure data.

Daniel Croft

Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding and experience of writing in the tech space. After studying at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022, writing for a number of publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber ​​Security Connect and Defense Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.

Leaders are to blame for cyber breaches, Australians say

Last updated: December 21, 2022 Published: December 28, 2022

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