Data Breaches: 5 steps to reduce your business exposure

In today’s data-driven world, the threat of data breaches looms large for businesses of all sizes. As reliance on digital infrastructure and information exchange grows, so does the risk of cybercrime. This trend holds true in Australia, where businesses of all sizes are grappling with data breach incidents.

In this article, we will explore Australian data breach statistics, how this impacts businesses, and the proactive measures you can take to mitigate these risks.

Alarming Statistics:

Recent studies have unearthed the shocking numbers underscoring the severity of data breaches in Australia. The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) reports a cybercrime incident every 7 minutes, including unauthorised data access, ransomware attacks, and phishing scams. The frequency and sophistication of these cyber breaches illustrate the importance of prioritising data security.

Financial Implications:

Data breach events can have crippling financial consequences for businesses.

The costs of investigating and resolving such incidents have been steadily rising, with small businesses facing an average cost of over $39,000 per cybercrime reported, and medium businesses being hit with an average cost of $88,000. These costs include incident response, legal support, customer notification, and managing reputational damage.

Businesses are advised to take a proactive approach to data protection, to ensure they have at least the minimum controls in place to mitigate the risk of such an incident.

Navigating Financial Penalties:

In addition to direct financial costs, recently introduced regulations can substantially increase the impact to your business. The implementation of the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme places additional responsibilities on companies, requiring prompt notification of affected individuals and to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) in the event of a data breach. Non-compliance with these obligations can result in substantial penalties, including hefty fines.

5 Steps to Reduce your Exposure:

While the risk of a data breach incident is increasing, the good news is that data security risks can be managed, and it isn’t as difficult as it may first appear.

The following 5 Steps – individually and collectively – will reduce your risk exposure:

STEP 1) Implement Essential 8: The Essential 8 is the cybersecurity framework recommended by the Australian Cyber Security Council (ACSC) and defines eight actions to mitigate cyber security threats. Measures such as regular system patching, restricted administrative privileges, and multi-factor authentication help safeguard against common attack vectors. Achieving Essential 8 compliance (level 1) is the minimum recommended technical protection your business needs.

Step 2) Implement Cyber Security and Privacy policies: A robust policy set that addresses cyber security, privacy and data protection is necessary to drive compliance in your organisation. From password control to business continuity planning in the case of an incident, a robust policy set is a necessary layer to protect your business.

Step 3) Educate your employees: The vast majority of cyber security incidents involve actions by staff. In most cases these are accidental, such as a staff member falling victim to a phishing campaign. These incidents are avoidable, and educating your staff with cyber security awareness training is a critical protection layer for your business.

Step 4) Implement an Information Security Management System (ISMS) and / or Privacy Information Management System (PIMS): If you have completed steps 1, 2 and 3, then it is not a big step to implement an ISMS – such as ISO 27001 – or PIMS – such as 27701. These management system frameworks provide a systematic approach to managing information security and privacy risk. Further, these standards are well recognised and help build trust with customers.

Step 5) Stay up to date: Familiarise yourself with the Privacy Act, Privacy Principles, and other privacy and cyber security regulations relevant to your business and industry – such as DISP, RFFR, and the ASD ISM. Australian privacy and cyber security laws are currently under review, so keep up-to-date to ensure you remain compliant.

Remember, investing in data security and compliance is an investment in the future sustainability and success of your business.

Final Thoughts:

At Synergy Compliance, we recognise the challenges businesses face in meeting and maintaining their privacy and information security compliance requirements. Our team of specialists advise small and medium business clients on these topics and provide the necessary tools and resources to support them through their compliance journey.

Synergy Compliance operates across a number of industries including Defence, Healthcare, Financial Services, Education, Employment Services, Disability Services and more, and have supported clients to achieve compliance and certification with a range of cyber security standards including ISO 27001, DISP, RFFR, ASD ISM, NIST and Essential 8.