What are the top 5 cybersecurity risks facing Australia in 2025-2026 according to Australian Cyber Security Centre and Australian Signals Directorate are ransomware, business email compromise and phishing, data breaches from third parties, attacks on critical infrastructure, and AI-powered scams and deepfakes. First, ransomware is top risk, where attackers encrypt business data and demand ransom $50K to $1M, causing average downtime 21 days and costing small business $46K and medium business $97K, with 30% increase in reports. Second, business email compromise and phishing, which is most common with 30% of reports, where attackers compromise email and send fake invoices with changed bank details, causing losses over $100M per year, average loss $30K. Third, data breaches from third party suppliers, like Optus and Medibank breaches exposing 10M records, and supply chain attacks where attacker compromises software provider. Fourth, attacks on critical infrastructure including energy, water, health, ports and telecoms by state-sponsored groups from China, Russia and Iran, with ASD warning of pre-positioning for disruption. Fifth, AI-powered scams including deepfake voice and video used for CEO fraud, and AI-generated phishing emails that are harder to detect, plus identity theft from large data breaches. Other risks include insider threats, unpatched vulnerabilities and cloud misconfiguration. ACSC recommends multi-factor authentication, backups, patching and staff training to mitigate these top 5 risks.
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