Australia's Signals Directorate Is Warning Businesses of Attacks Before They Happen, and Asking for Reports in Return

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) notified organisations of potential malicious cyber activity more than 4,400 times in the year ending June, up almost 80%. That figure includes over 2,200 individual notifications and collective notifications sent to more than 2,100 entities. More than 1,100 warnings drew on previously secret intelligence that had been cleared for disclosure, according to the agency's annual cyber threat report.

The warnings helped victims identify more than 360 incidents. One alert, sent to 340 organisations in May about flaws in cPanel web hosting software, led to more than 60 confirmed incidents. The ASD does not say how many attacks its warnings prevented, what the intelligence was, or how many recipients acted on it. Reports from victims also helped the agency disrupt an Akira ransomware group campaign in August 2025, after technical evidence from several attacks pointed to a known SonicWall vulnerability.

The agency wants information to flow both ways. It says reporting an incident could prevent further victims, and stresses that it is not a regulator and does not share information without your express consent. The report also advises anyone concerned about whether a call is genuine to ring the agency's hotline and quote their reference number. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre told Recorded Future News in 2023 that some recipients of its warnings assumed they were being scammed.