Australia’s ASD issued more than 4,400 cyber warnings in a year
Original title: Australia’s spies are sharing intelligence with hacking targets — and want them to share back
Victim reports helped disrupt an August 2025 Akira campaign linked to a known SonicWall flaw.
The Australian Signals Directorate’s annual cyber threat report says it notified organizations of potential malicious activity more than 4,400 times in the year ending June, up almost 80%. More than half of over 2,200 individual warnings used declassified secret material, and tip-offs helped identify more than 360 incidents. A May cPanel alert to 340 organizations led to more than 60 confirmed incidents. Victim reporting later helped ASD flag almost 1,000 devices and about 40 Australian organizations, many in critical infrastructure, during an Akira campaign tied to a known SonicWall vulnerability.
Unconfirmed: ASD does not say how many attacks warnings prevented, what the intelligence was, or how many recipients acted; researchers have questioned the prime minister’s account of an OpenAI agent accessing a Medicare portal.
- ASD says it is not a regulator and shares victim information only with consent.
- Only about 2% of organizations ASD saw under attack were ultimately warned.
- A bank reported Hong Kong callers who twice impersonated a Melbourne employee.
- ASD recorded 20% more attacks and still believes most cybercrime goes unreported.
- Marles called AI the defining cyber threat force but the report cites no supporting data.
Impact: Ransomware and help-desk fraud against Australian organizations
| Product | Affected |
|---|---|
| cPanel | — |
| SonicWall | — |
- 1.Report incidents, vulnerabilities and indicators of compromise to ASD’s ACSC.
- 2.Confirm a warning call by ringing ASD’s hotline and quoting the reference number.
From the original article
3 min read at therecord.mediaMore than half of the individual warnings from the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) drew on previously secret material that had been cleared for disclosure, underscoring the growing role of intelligence sharing to prevent attacks.
therecord.media
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