Cyber attacks on Australian government, business leap

Cyber attacks on Australian government agencies and businesses have jumped by 20 percent in the past year, reports said on Thursday.

The Australian Signals Directorate, an Australian intelligence agency, said the most commonly targeted sectors were banking, resources and energy, defense capability and telecommunications.

"It's an arms race, it's a cyber arms race, where sometimes the bad guys will get a little bit ahead and sometimes the good guys will get a little bit ahead," IT security consultant Wade Alcorn told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) received millions of cyber attacks daily from organized crime and so-called "hactivists. "

According to CBA's information security boss Ben Heyes, serious attacks are rapidly on the rise.

"We're seeing the tools that are available for executing a cyber attack are becoming more widespread and becoming increasingly more sophisticated and, with that, we're seeing a large increase in the volume of attacks," he said.

The Australian government opened the Australian Cyber Security Center last November to coordinate various official Australian cyber intelligence units.