While 85 per cent of Australian organisations have suffered a ransomware attack over the last five years, the worrying research has also indicated that 72 per cent of respondents tried to keep it quiet.

Not only did the research uncover that some 85 per cent of Australian organisations suffer ransomware attacks, but 35 per cent further reported that they had indeed paid the ransom to the attackers even though they believed it could result in additional attacks.

The worrying research into Australia’s cyber industry was undertaken by StollzNow Research for the ExtraHop Cyber Confidence Index.

In terms of confidence of Australian IT decision-makers (ITDMs) toward their cyber security capabilities, only 43 per cent expressed a high degree of confidence in their cyber offering, with the research reporting that the same percentage had demonstrated low confidence in their own offering.

The report theorised that the poor confidence may underpin why IT decision makers choose not to notify people of the incidents.

“Security leaders in Asia-Pacific are facing a challenge. They’re in disagreement with executives around disclosure, they’re getting increased budgets, but it doesn’t feel like enough, and there is worry around legal obligations,” Jeff Costlow, CISO at ExtraHop, said.