Today, on World Back-up Day the Australian Government is urging businesses, organisations and individuals to back-up their digital information to protect themselves against compromise.
Assistant Minister for Defence, the Hon Andrew Hastie MP, said that recent cyber incidents are a timely reminder of the significant impact of cyber threats such as ransomware on the operations of Australian organisations.
"Cyber security is a team effort and a shared responsibility," said Assistant Minister Hastie.
"Australian organisations, big and small, are attractive targets to cybercriminals and other malicious actors determined to lock-up their networks and critical data to hold them to ransom and cause significant disruptions,"
"Backing-up is an essential part of business continuity planning to help Australian organisations get up and running again should they be impacted by ransomware."
"Ransomware is the tool of choice for cybercriminals and without back-ups saved regularly to a safe location separate from the network, recovering your data is much harder, if not impossible."
The ACSC's Annual Cyber Threat Report identified ransomware as the one of the most significant cyber threats faced by organisations. In the twelve months to 28 February 2021, the ACSC received an estimated 450 reports of ransomware-related incidents through ReportCyber.
Ransomware is a type of malware used by cybercriminals and other malicious actors online to lock up or steal a copy of important files to coerce individuals and organisations to pay a ransom by threating to publicly leak or sell the data.
Backing up your data is a key focus of the Australian Cyber Security Centre's (ACSC) campaign which was launched on 30 November 2020.
For more tips on how to strengthen your cyber defences visit: cyber.gov.au.
Cybercrime can be reported through ReportCyber which is managed by the ACSC on behalf of law enforcement agencies, providing a single online portal for individuals and businesses to report cyber incidents.
