Cyber Security: Two Months In Retrospect (Australia) - August And September 2025

The AFR Cyber Summit was our focus in September, but now we are back. We have looked at the big cyber stories from the last 2 months and brought them together for you below. We do the heavy-lifting, so you don't have to...

Cyber Top 10

1. Australian Clinical Labs and the OAIC presented an agreed civil penalty position of $5.8m to the Federal Court arising from a 2022 data breach affecting 223,000 customers. The final judgment is expected shortly. This is likely to be the first civil penalty judgment under Australia's Privacy Act. For more details, read our summary here.
2. The OAIC launched civil penalty proceedings against Optus in relation to the cyber attack that impacted the organisation in September 2022. The OAIC has alleged that Optus failed to manage cybersecurity risk in line with its data holdings and profile. Read more here.