The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has published its Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) Report for the period July to December 2022.

There was a 26% increase in breaches overall, as a result of large-scale cyber security incidents; thirty-three of the 40 breaches that affected over 5,000 Australians were the result of cyber security incidents.

The top 5 sectors to notify data breaches were:

• Health service providers;
• Finance (incl. superannuation);
• Insurance;
• Legal, accounting & management services; and
• Recruitment agencies.

45% of all data breaches resulted from cyber security incidents (222 notifications)

The main types of cyber incidents were:

• Ransomware;
• Compromised or stolen credentials (method unknown);
• Phishing (compromised credentials);
• Brute-force attack (compromised credentials);
• Hacking;
• Malware.

Other findings for the July to December 2022 reporting period include:

• There was a 41% increase in data breaches resulting from malicious or criminal attacks. Malicious
  or criminal attacks accounted for 350 notifications – 70% of all notifications;
• Human error was the cause of 123 notifications (25% of all notifications), down 5% in number from
  129;
• Contact information remains the most common type of personal information involved in breaches;
• The majority (88%) of breaches affected 5,000 individuals or fewer;
• 71% of entities notified the OAIC within 30 days of becoming aware of an incident.

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