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A/NZ Companies Not Changing Data Management Despite Multiple Breaches

The majority of organizations across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) breached over the last year had personally identifiable information (PII) compromised, but most have not yet modified their data management policies, according to the Cybersecurity and PII Report from ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation.


The survey respondents who had reported their organization experienced between one and five data breaches in the past 12 months said PII was involved in 51% of instances. Despite this, of the respondents who can comment on PII and are aware of major data breaches, the majority (54%) reported either no changes in PII management following the breaches or said they were unaware of any changes. Further, 42% said they have not been advised of their organization's protocols around PII management.

When it came to data categories, 55% of respondents said they store data on past customers, 41% on past employees, 70% on current customers, 66% on current employees and 37% on potential customers.

Vinayak Sreedhar, ManageEngine's country manager for Australia, said the findings highlight alarming gaps in Australia's cybersecurity preparedness. "One year ago, a string of high-profile breaches saw millions of Australians have their data compromised, with identification points traded on the dark web,” he said. "This prompted discussions around the legal right to request the erasure of personal information in company databases. The law is yet to change in Australia and, as this survey indicates, local organizations have not changed their practices."

When it came to cyber resilience, 24% of survey participants who were aware of cyber resilience said their organization either did not have a cyber resilience policy or they were unaware of it. The majority (63%) were also unfamiliar with the Essential Eight, the cybersecurity framework proposed by the Australian Cyber Security Centre that is mandatory at the federal government level, to enhance cyber readiness.

Rajesh Ganesan, President of ManageEngine, said the report underscores the pressing need for stronger cybersecurity measures and more effective PII management strategies among A/NZ companies. "It's imperative that businesses adopt the data protection standards specific to their region, stay compliant, and bolster their cyber resilience to protect not only their own operations, but the sensitive information of staff and customers, both past and present. We hope this report drives home the urgency of these requirements."

Other key findings:

■ Of the respondents that experienced a breach, 73% said it took their organization less than 24 hours after critical systems were taken offline or impacted to recover and restore operations.

■ Of the respondents, 74% said their organization has not paid a ransom to recover data, but 10% indicated they had.

■ Of the 78% of respondents aware of major data breaches in other organizations, 17% of Australian respondents weren't aware of recent major cybersecurity breaches occurring in Q3 2023, while 47% of those in New Zealand were uninformed.

Methodology: Conducted by Sydney-based research and insights advisory firm StollzNow, the study commissioned by ManageEngine surveyed 306 senior IT decision-makers from different organizations in A/NZ, covering topics such as cyber resilience, PII management, cyber practices under hybrid work models, the Essential Eight, malware and ransomware. The study identified key dimensions that require immediate attention by decision-makers and highlighted cybersecurity challenges.

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A/NZ Companies Not Changing Data Management Despite Multiple Breaches

The majority of organizations across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) breached over the last year had personally identifiable information (PII) compromised, but most have not yet modified their data management policies, according to the Cybersecurity and PII Report from ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation.


The survey respondents who had reported their organization experienced between one and five data breaches in the past 12 months said PII was involved in 51% of instances. Despite this, of the respondents who can comment on PII and are aware of major data breaches, the majority (54%) reported either no changes in PII management following the breaches or said they were unaware of any changes. Further, 42% said they have not been advised of their organization's protocols around PII management.

When it came to data categories, 55% of respondents said they store data on past customers, 41% on past employees, 70% on current customers, 66% on current employees and 37% on potential customers.

Vinayak Sreedhar, ManageEngine's country manager for Australia, said the findings highlight alarming gaps in Australia's cybersecurity preparedness. "One year ago, a string of high-profile breaches saw millions of Australians have their data compromised, with identification points traded on the dark web,” he said. "This prompted discussions around the legal right to request the erasure of personal information in company databases. The law is yet to change in Australia and, as this survey indicates, local organizations have not changed their practices."

When it came to cyber resilience, 24% of survey participants who were aware of cyber resilience said their organization either did not have a cyber resilience policy or they were unaware of it. The majority (63%) were also unfamiliar with the Essential Eight, the cybersecurity framework proposed by the Australian Cyber Security Centre that is mandatory at the federal government level, to enhance cyber readiness.

Rajesh Ganesan, President of ManageEngine, said the report underscores the pressing need for stronger cybersecurity measures and more effective PII management strategies among A/NZ companies. "It's imperative that businesses adopt the data protection standards specific to their region, stay compliant, and bolster their cyber resilience to protect not only their own operations, but the sensitive information of staff and customers, both past and present. We hope this report drives home the urgency of these requirements."

Other key findings:

■ Of the respondents that experienced a breach, 73% said it took their organization less than 24 hours after critical systems were taken offline or impacted to recover and restore operations.

■ Of the respondents, 74% said their organization has not paid a ransom to recover data, but 10% indicated they had.

■ Of the 78% of respondents aware of major data breaches in other organizations, 17% of Australian respondents weren't aware of recent major cybersecurity breaches occurring in Q3 2023, while 47% of those in New Zealand were uninformed.

Methodology: Conducted by Sydney-based research and insights advisory firm StollzNow, the study commissioned by ManageEngine surveyed 306 senior IT decision-makers from different organizations in A/NZ, covering topics such as cyber resilience, PII management, cyber practices under hybrid work models, the Essential Eight, malware and ransomware. The study identified key dimensions that require immediate attention by decision-makers and highlighted cybersecurity challenges.

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Respondents predict that agentic AI will play an increasingly prominent role in their interactions with technology vendors over the coming years and are positive about the benefits it will bring, according to The Race to an Agentic Future: How Agentic AI Will Transform Customer Experience, a report from Cisco ...

A new wave of tariffs, some exceeding 100%, is sending shockwaves across the technology industry. Enterprises are grappling with sudden, dramatic cost increases that threaten to disrupt carefully planned budgets, sourcing strategies, and deployment plans. For CIOs and CTOs, this isn't just an economic setback; it's a wake-up call. The era of predictable cloud pricing and stable global supply chains is over ...

As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption gains momentum, network readiness is emerging as a critical success factor. AI workloads generate unpredictable bursts of traffic, demanding high-speed connectivity that is low latency and lossless. AI adoption will require upgrades and optimizations in data center networks and wide-area networks (WANs). This is prompting enterprise IT teams to rethink, re-architect, and upgrade their data center and WANs to support AI-driven operations ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is core to observability practices, with some 41% of respondents reporting AI adoption as a core driver of observability, according to the State of Observability for Financial Services and Insurance report from New Relic ...

Application performance monitoring (APM) is a game of catching up — building dashboards, setting thresholds, tuning alerts, and manually correlating metrics to root causes. In the early days, this straightforward model worked as applications were simpler, stacks more predictable, and telemetry was manageable. Today, the landscape has shifted, and more assertive tools are needed ...

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Private clouds are no longer playing catch-up, and public clouds are no longer the default as organizations recalibrate their cloud strategies, according to the Private Cloud Outlook 2025 report from Broadcom. More than half (53%) of survey respondents say private cloud is their top priority for deploying new workloads over the next three years, while 69% are considering workload repatriation from public to private cloud, with one-third having already done so ...

As organizations chase productivity gains from generative AI, teams are overwhelmingly focused on improving delivery speed (45%) over enhancing software quality (13%), according to the Quality Transformation Report from Tricentis ...

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