After Optus, Medibank and SingTel data breach, the government of Australia seems to have taken information leaks seriously, as it is soon going to introduce a proposal that aims to increase the penalties on companies that experience data breaches from now on. As companies are failing to take security measures to protect their user information, the federal government is planning to hike fines that are being imposed on businesses experiencing data leaks.
According to a report emerged on Friday last week, Energy Australia fell prey to a sophisticated cyber attack, resulting in information leak of over 323 residential and small business users and official estimates are in that misuse of that data wasn’t observed till date.
To eliminate such incidents in the future, the Anthony Albanese led government is discerning to increase the minimum penalty to $10 million for all firms that experience cyber-attacks.
Currently, the max. Penalty for critical and repetitive data leaks is at ASD $2.12 million and is now going to be increased to $50m ASD, 3 times more than what is being levied, presently.
In coming weeks i.e., by the end of November this year, the Australian government is also planning to overhaul the current rules related to consumer data privacy and will mainly focus on companies first that are in transit, telecom and banking sector.
NOTE- Australian Cyber Army, a special force appointed to mitigate threats on national infrastructure, suspects that the attacks that are being launched on a current note are by Killnet, the Russian government funded hacking group. And believes that Albanese led government will have to face more such digital wrath in the future as they are supporting Ukraine against Kremlin in the ongoing battle by supplying funds, ammunition and much needed essentials.
