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5 Tips to Make Cyber Security in Australia a Business Priority

With over 200 reported cyber incidents every day, Australia is known as one of the most hacked countries in the world. Cyber security in Australia is very much needed. Australia’s federal government recently issued the Enforcement Act with harsh penalties to incentivize businesses to improve privacy and data security measures. Penalties for severe and repeated interferences with privacy increased from 2.2 million to 50 million or 30 percent of adjusted turnover or three times the benefit, whichever is greater.

Below are five tips for improving cyber security in Australia that will cover the following three objectives:

  • Comply with government regulations and industry standards
  • Defend against cyber threats and help prevent data breaches
  • Train the workforce on cybersecurity, data privacy, and more

Tip 1: Streamline compliance with regulations and standards

Australia’s Enforcement Act applies to a cyber security and data privacy regulation that businesses must comply with. There are more country-specific rules and industry standards for Australian and New Zealand businesses like NIST 800-53 and ISO27001. Leverage work already done for other obligations and standards by applying a unified single control framework.

Office worker looking out window at Sydney Harbour bridgeTip 2: Understand where IT meets business

To understand the true impact of cyber risk scenarios, see the correlation with company assets. What company assets are at risk? How important are those assets to operations? Use a risk assessment that integrates threat, vulnerability, incident, and control performance data. This will reveal the real likelihood of a particular cyber scenario materializing and the corresponding risk to assets. This visibility improves decision making and help prioritize mitigation actions by focusing on the biggest bang for the buck.

Tip 3: Focus on the automation of processes, including reporting and collaboration

Apply automation to new and existing processes to increase efficiency and accuracy, as well as capture data for cyber risk intelligence. Automated processes allow you to operate an IT risk management program fully capable of adhering to regulations and standards and meeting the challenge of the never-ending cyber threat. Set up reminders to keep teams aware of tasks assigned. Streamlined processes help with analyzing data and meeting disclosure requirements. For example, Australia’s new data privacy regulation has a data breach notification process. For management purposes, a central dashboard can show the real-time threat landscape, state of incidents, control performance and more, enabling a proactive response.

Tip 4: Deliver cyber security Australia training and awareness

Look for a robust continuous training and awareness program that addresses prevention, detection, containment, reporting, and notification, as well as offers customization by user profile. End users may need training on recognizing phishing emails while the crisis management team practices data breach scenarios. Enable an online training module approach that integrates online learning and policy attestation and includes exercises for crisis response teams in IT and the business.

Tip. 5: Enlist in technology that can automate processes

Do not step into the pitfall of managing your program with distributed end user computing tools. In our experience, data quality suffers, and administrative tasks overburden your experts. Give your IT team the proper tools and technologies to perform their activities, so they can focus on what matters most. IT risk and cybersecurity software equips IT departments to map risks to requirements, automate assessments of assets and third parties, and manage the incident response process.

Cyber incident and data breach prevention start here

Build a cyber security program in Australia that complies with regulations and standards, provides a vigorous defense from hackers and emphasizes tailored cyber security training for employees. Just getting started? Look into a prescriptive framework like NIST 800-53 or compliance with CIS benchmarks. Then buy into a technology platform that you can start and grow with.

Australia may still have a hacking problem, but your business won’t.

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