Cyberattacks on Australian and NZ Operational Systems Cost Nearly Double the Global Average

Cyberattacks on operational environments are costing organisations in Australia and New Zealand an average of $2.04 million per incident, according to new research from cyber-physical systems security company Claroty. The global average is $1.04 million. The findings come from a survey of 2,000 business and technology leaders in more than 40 countries, covering operational technology, internet of things devices, medical devices and building management systems.

Claroty reported that 80% of ANZ organisations experienced an attack on their operational environments in the past 12 months. Respondents named operational downtime (41%), safety incidents or hazards (37%) and reputational damage (32%) as the most significant impacts of their worst incident. Downtime averaged about two hours, although 18% said disruption lasted more than three days.

Third-party remote access stood out as a risk. Some 88% of ANZ organisations had at least one incident originating from third-party remote access in the past year, with an average of more than three such incidents. Yet 52% had only partial or no monitoring of third-party connections into these environments. Jason Pearce, Field CTO for APJ at Claroty, said the results reinforce why operational resilience should be treated as a business priority, not simply a cybersecurity objective.