63 Per Cent Australian Businesses Suffer From a Security Breach: CompTIA

Within the past year, 63 per cent of Australian organisations have suffered at least one security breach, according to a International Trends in Cybersecurity report by CompTIA.

It found that mobile security incidents are occurring at a higher rate, with 71 per cent of Australian organisations reporting a mobile-related security incident such as a lost device, data policy violation or staff disabling security features.

The study also showed that human error is a large contributing factor to security breaches with 61 per cent of Australian organisations stating this versus 58 per cent globally.

The top sources of human error included failure to get up to speed on new threats (37 per cent), end user failure to follow policies and procedures (31 per cent), general carelessness (28 per cent), intentional disabling of security features (28 per cent), lack of expertise with websites and applications (27 per cent) and IT staff failure to follow policies and procedures (25 per cent).

According to findings, as only 23 per cent of Australian organisations rated their cyber security education and training methods as extremely effective, 72 per cent of the businesses reported they expect to see security become a higher priority over the next two years.

“Due to the evolving nature of IT, most organisations have had to change the way their company approaches security. In Australia, as in many other countries, the greatest change has been in IT operations, especially as firms move to Cloud or implement new mobility strategies,” Channel Dynamics director, Moheb Moses, said.

The top drivers for a changing approach includes a change in IT operations like Cloud and mobility (41 per cent), reports of security breaches at other firms (33 per cent), knowledge gained from certification and training (28 per cent) and a change in business operations or client base (27 per cent).

CompTIA senior director research and market intelligence, Amy Carrado, added, “The importance of cybersecurity knowledge and readiness continues to grow regardless of geography, with 79 per cent of companies internationally expecting cyber security to become a higher priority over the next two years.”

Mobile incidents were reported at the highest percentages in Thailand (95 per cent) India (91 per cent) and Mexico (89 per cent) and in the lowest percentages in Japan (60 per cent) and the UK (64 per cent).