Cybersecurity: Why Business Owners in Australia Can’t Afford to Ignore It
When most people hear the word “cybersecurity”, they’ll picture headlines about major agencies or corporations. Just recently, we have seen the Qantas hack and the Medibank hack back in 2022.
Unfortunately, small and medium-sized businesses in Australia are some of the most common victims. Business owners are stretched thin and often rely on outdated systems with little more than free antivirus programs standing between them and the hacker on the other side of the screen.
In 2023-2024 alone, Australians reported over 87,000 cybercrime incidents. That’s one report every six minutes! Each number represents a business that couldn’t send an invoice, a retailer that lost customer payment data or a tradie whose laptop was locked by ransomware. For small businesses, it’s estimated that the average incident costs about $49,600. For many, that’s enough to erase profit margins for the year.
It Doesn’t Take Much
What makes these numbers scarier is how simple most breaches are. I can almost guarantee that you have pulled a late night trying to get through the last of your invoices and emails. Imagine another email comes through from what looks like a supplier. The name is familiar, and the tone is about right. All you have to do is click to confirm an order. You’re too tired and forgot to do a check or go the long way around, and you click. In that moment, your laptop is compromised, and all of your information is vulnerable. Worse still, all of your clients’ data might be exposed.
That’s how I imagine most cyber incidents begin, not with shadowy hackers creating code and breaking through firewalls, but with an exhausted business owner or staff member clicking on a link or file that slipped past their attention.
The Real Business Cost
When a breach happens, the damage extends far beyond IT. Customers lose trust, and in today’s connected world, that’s everything. Imagine ringing up your clients to let them know that their personal details might have been exposed.
The financial toll is severe and requires insurance claims and uncomfortable conversations. Australian regulators are also tightening the rules, so it doesn’t just mean unhappy customers, it also could include fines, legal exposure and weeks of distraction while you repair the damage. It’s a devastating event that could have been so easily avoided, and I feel so much sympathy for those people who are stuck in a hack. It was such a harmless mistake.
What Adapting Looks Like
Protecting your business doesn’t mean you have to become an expert in IT. You do have to take it seriously, though. You have to ask the right questions and never settle for a vague reassurance like “we’re secure”. Instead, you could ask, “If we were attached tomorrow, how quickly could we recover?”.
Most attacks occur because of human error. I would seriously encourage you to train your staff and yourself to spot suspicious emails. In a country where the average spend from small to medium enterprises is $500 a year, even a modest investment in education can place you on a better footing.
Multi-factor authentication might feel frustrating, but it blocks most attacks before they even start.
Backups are great, but only if you have tested them and know that they are doing their job correctly.
Building a relationship with the right IT or cybersecurity partner is also a great idea to help your business bounce back.
The Bottom Line
It always feels like it’ll only happen to other people, until suddenly, it happens to you. Nobody gets in the car expecting a crash. Nobody leaves the house expecting their wallet to be stolen. Nobody holds their phone expecting the screen to shatter. It only takes one moment for the unexpected to become your reality.
Australian businesses don’t need reminding that the world is changing really quickly. The rise in cybercrime won’t go away. Especially with the progression of AI and its ability to mimic voices. The question isn’t whether your business WILL be targeted, but whether you can survive the moment it happens.
You’ve worked hard to build your business. Cybersecurity is just a simple way of protecting that work, your people and clients who trust you. Waiting until after the attack is too late.
