By Anthony Daniel, Managing Director, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, WatchGuard Technologies
Every year, Anti-Ransomware Day arrives with the same familiar advice: patch your systems, back up your data, and train your employees. Those fundamentals still matter, but ransomware has evolved far beyond opportunistic attacks and phishing emails. Today’s attackers operate more patiently and strategically, often spending time inside environments identifying operational weak points, backup infrastructure, and high-value systems before deploying encryption. For many organisations, the challenge is no longer just recovering from ransomware but detecting suspicious behaviour early enough to stop disruption before it spreads.
WatchGuard’s latest Internet Security Report revealed a 1,548% surge in new malware variants, with nearly a quarter specifically designed to evade traditional detection methods. Rather than relying on high-volume attacks, cybercriminals are increasingly prioritising stealth, using tactics that blend into legitimate activity and remain undetected for longer periods. It’s one reason more organisations are adopting a Zero Trust approach based on the principle of “never trust, always verify”, continuously validating users, devices, and access requests instead of assuming anything within the network is automatically safe.
For Australian businesses, particularly those operating with lean IT and security teams, resilience now depends on reducing blind spots across endpoint, identity, cloud, and network environments. The organisations responding most effectively are simplifying security operations, improving visibility across systems, and prioritising faster detection and response capabilities, not just prevention alone.
