With ransomware attacks affecting six out of 10 Australian organisations1 businesses are being forced to decide whether to concede to the ransom demands of cyber criminals in order to regain access to critical data However with no guarantee that payment of a ransom will release their data businesses ...

Ransomware is big business as cyber criminals increasingly transition from a business model focused on the theft of data to one predicated on extortion Remarkably however the use of malicious software to elicit a financial benefit is not new with the first recorded outbreak of ransomware occurring ...

Almost half of all companies experienced at least one cyber ransom incident in 2016 - either a ransomware attack or a ransom denial-of-service attack That same year ransomware attacks cost businesses more than US1 billion worldwide1 a figure expected to reach US5 billion in 2017 and exceed US115 ...

2016 was the Year of the Data Breach for Yahoo, as it announced three separate and significant data breaches. Although the consequences of these breaches are still unfolding, the financial cost to Yahoo is already significant – in 2017, Verizon slashed the price of its deal to buy Yahoo by US$350 mi ...

In late August 2017 the US Food and Drug Administration recalled 465000 Abbott Laboratories pacemakers due to cyber security vulnerabilities Although this was the first time that the FDA had recalled a medical device because of cyber concerns they have been alive to the significant risk that a cyber ...

The cyber insurance market in Australia is rapidly developing however key problems still remain. This guide explains cyber insurance – what it is, what it covers, common limits and exclusions – and how to work out whether cyber insurance is right for you ...

The Federal Government has introduced draft legislation to establish a long-awaited mandatory comprehensive credit reporting regime for the major banks from 1 July 2018 Partner Gavin Smith Senior Associate Emily Cravigan and Lawyer Dougald Coulson report ...

The Australian Law Reform Commission has released its long-anticipated final report on serious invasions of privacy The report proposes that a new statutory cause of action be implemented in a new stand-alone Commonwealth Act If adopted the proposal would have far reaching ramifications for ...

There's a joke in the cyber security industry that there are two types of companies: those that know they have been hacked, and those that haven't yet found out. In November 2013, Target Corporation in the US learned this the hard way when it was told by law enforcement agencies that it had been sub ...

The Target data breach brought the liability of boards and directors in relation to cyber resilience into focus. Target's shareholders brought litigation against all of its directors, the chief financial officer and the chief information officer due to what was perceived as recklessness and disregar ...