Written by: Mike Mitchell, National Cybersecurity Advisor
As 2026 approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about how dramatically the cyber threat landscape in Australia has changed. Ransomware is no longer just a financially motivated crime. Today, organised cybercrime groups, nation-state aligned actors and financially motivated operators are all using overlapping tools, infrastructure and tradecraft and AI is accelerating everything!!
What’s Changed? The Australian Picture Going Into 2026
The Australian Signals Directorate has already reported a 23% rise in cyber incidents year-on-year, with ransomware and extortion continuing to dominate.
Among Australian organisations hit by ransomware:
84% said attackers attempted to compromise backups
66% reported those attempts succeeded
And AI has fundamentally changed attacker capability as we move into 2026:
Phishing and impersonation attacks are now automated and far more convincing
Large language models have lowered the barrier to executing sophisticated attacks
AI-powered vulnerability discovery is compressing patching windows
Data theft and extortion communications are now tailored and deeply targeted
The line between criminal groups and state-linked operators is blurring fast not because attackers are becoming nation-state actors, but because AI has made nation-state-level sophistication accessible at scale.
What This Means for Australian Defenders
This new landscape forces a mindset shift.
It’s no longer enough to focus on prevention and containment. We must assume partial compromise is possible and build the ability to recover quickly, cleanly and confidently.
Especially when attackers are:
Targeting and corrupting backups
Stealing sensitive data before encryption
Using AI to accelerate lateral movement and privilege escalation
Your resilience is no longer defined by how well you keep threats out It’s now defined by how quickly you can stand back up.
Recovery Maturity Is Becoming a Strategic Advantage in 2026
The organisations that perform best under real-world pressure have:
Immutable, offline or vault-based backups
Regular end-to-end restore testing across full applications
Clear, rehearsed ransomware playbooks involving executives, legal, comms and operations
Robust network segmentation and access controls to limit blast radius
Recovery maturity has shifted from being a technical measure to a business capability one that increasingly determines reputation, continuity and competitiveness.
A Call to Action for 2026
If you haven’t recently:
Tested your ability to recover end-to-end
Confirmed your backups are truly immutable
Run a ransomware tabletop with your executive team
Now is the time.
AI is accelerating both attackers and defenders. The organisations that invest in resilience heading into 2026 will be stronger, faster, and far harder to disrupt.