This recent wave of Australian cyberattacks has proven that businesses are still falling short when it comes to protecting the data and identities of consumers. And although Australia has borne the brunt of recent attacks, there’s little stopping this from happening closer to home.

As we transition to new forms of online interaction and the world of Web3.0, businesses with high profiles and revenue will continue to be high on the target list of cyber criminals.

With the Australian government increasing the maximum data breach penalty and introducing new legislation to handle cyberattacks, the onus is now more than ever on organisations to secure their customers’ data.

One thing is clear, there are often drivers that lead to these kinds of attack, and businesses should start by addressing the human errors that have let these breaches happen in the first place.

For example, organisations may need to revisit their data storage principles and make sure that they’re not relying on old hashing algorithms. There also needs to be good authentication practices  woven through the entire customer transaction lifestyle, such as multifactor authentication (MFA) and identity verification.

These security practices must be continuously innovated so that we stay a step ahead of cyber criminals and ensure we have seamless end-to-end identity verification. Taking a more holistic look at security practices across different industries can also help to prevent large spates of attacks like this. These types of attack release precious data into a hackers market place, which can be reused over and over again, this is likely why we’ve seen this series of breaches.

In short, increasing regulations more broadly will ensure that higher standards of security practice are in place no matter the industry or region.