The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) released the Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-2025 on 14 October 2025, which reviews the reported cybercrimes and cybersecurity incidents from the last financial year. It analyses the cyber threat landscape, and advises key strategies to help you and your data stay safe.
The report shows a consistent increase in cybercrime across the country, and how the rise of Artificial Intelligence boosts the scale and speed at which scams can be deployed.
We are as connected and reliant on technology as ever, and cybercriminals are taking advantage of the opportunity to target our personal and professional data.
The Year in Review
So, what are the stats?
Below are the numbers that the ASD’s Australian Cyber Security Centre saw over the last financial year:
- 16% increase in calls to the Australian Cyber Security Hotline (over 42,500)
- 1 cybercrime was reported every 6 minutes to ReportCyber
- 8% increase in self-reported cybercrime costs per report for individuals (average $33,000)
- 50% increase in self-reported cybercrime costs per report for businesses (average $80,850)
- 11% of incidents responded to involved ransomware
- 8% increase in identity fraud, the top reported cybercrime
- 280% increase of Denial of Service (DoS) or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
Denial of Service Attack
This is a cyber-attack that makes an online service unusable, such as a website being unreachable. There are a few different ways this can occur:
- Flooding the service with connections in order to crash the network
- Using multiple computers to direct online traffic at an online service, which amplifies the number of connections and uses all the networks available processing power (DDoS)
- Hijacking the online service’s domain to redirect all legitimate connections elsewhere
The Top Threes
The three biggest areas affected in targeted categories:
Critical Infrastructure
- Compromised Asset/Network/Infrastructure 55%
- DoS/DDoS 23%
- Compromised Account/Credentials 19%
Cybercrimes for Businesses
- Business email compromise (BEC) resulting in no financial loss 19%
- BEC fraud resulting in financial loss 15%
- Identity fraud 11%
Financial Loss for Businesses
- small business – $56,600 (up 14%)
- medium business – $97,200 (up 55%)
- large business – $202,700 (up 219%)
Individuals
- Identity fraud 30%
- Online shopping fraud 13%
- Online banking fraud 10%
Take action
It’s important to be proactive in defending against cybercrime. Here are some key strategies to implement;
- Integrate the Essential Eight strategies, developed by the Australian Signals Directorate, to create a baseline of security for your systems and data:
- patch applications
- patch operating systems
- multi-factor authentication
- restrict administrative privileges
- application control
- restrict Microsoft Office macros
- user application hardening
- regular backups
- Train your team on the relevant security protocols, and what to do in the event of a cyber security breach.
See Something, Say Something
If you’re concerned that you might be a victim of a cyber-attack, report it right away! Don’t wait around to see if anything happens – because it could already be too late!
