The number of cybersecurity incidents handled by the Australian Signals Directorate grew 20% last financial year, as AI made it easier for attackers to find vulnerabilities and strike at speed and scale.

The directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre responded to more than 1500 incidents in 2025-26, marking a 36% increase over five years, according to its Annual Cyber Threat Report.

The agency also notified organisations of potentially malicious cyber activity more than 4400 times, up almost 80% on 2024-25. There were more than 2200 individual notifications and more than 2100 collective notifications to organisations.

The report says AI amplifies social engineering techniques, making it easier for attackers to impersonate or manipulate people and businesses to obtain money or access networks and sensitive information.

“Australian individuals had personally identifiable information compromised in a growing number of global data breaches, and this data was held to ransom, sold or published online,” the report says. 

State-sponsored actors continued to target Australian organisations to obtain sensitive information, with activity extending beyond government networks to critical infrastructure, private businesses and individuals.

Compromised accounts and credentials were among the most frequently reported incident categories across government, industry and critical infrastructure sectors, “reflecting the value malicious actors place on legitimate access to networks and systems”.

The report says organisations must strengthen basic security measures, including patching systems, reducing legacy IT exposure and improving network monitoring.

The integration of AI into security operations can help identify vulnerabilities, detect unusual behaviour and improve incident response.

The report also notes the importance of preparing for post-quantum cryptography. Organisations are urged to move away from traditional asymmetric cryptography by the end of 2030.

“This will ensure an organisation is at lower risk should AI speed up developments in quantum computing.”

Find the report here.