In 2017, the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands deployed an artificial intelligence (AI) system to determine how likely welfare recipients were to commit fraud. After analysing the data, the system developed biases: it flagged as “high risk” people who identified as female, young, with kids, and of low proficiency in the Dutch language.
AI is becoming increasingly pervasive in all aspects of life, and this trend will continue to shape our work and personal experiences in 2025. The growing fusion of physical and digital lives is transforming expectations, both for organisations and individuals.
AI and ML will play an increasingly central role in cybersecurity in 2025. They will be used to enhance threat detection and response (more effective anomaly detection), improve threat hunting (proactively identify vulnerabilities), combine security posture management to behavioural analytics to help monitor and secure large datasets in real-time, spotting risks such as data exfiltration attempts or unusual data access patterns.
Geospatial tech startup Terria has spun out of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, after successfully closing a seed investment round with Australian deep tech investment fund, Main Sequence.
The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (Aus3C) has announced a nationwide effort to strengthen data protection across the business sector, as organizations face increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks and data breaches that have exposed millions of customer records in recent years.
Months after the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) launched a major offensive against the notorious ransomware group LockBit, the cybercriminal gang appears to have resurfaced, continuing to carry out attacks. Despite law enforcement efforts, ransomware groups like LockBit remain resilient, demonstrating the evolving challenge in the fight against cybercrime.
The Cyber Security Act and related bills have been passed by the Parliament, following review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That Committee recommended a number of relatively minor changes, and with effect from six months after royal assent, once formal approval is granted by the Governor General, most businesses will be required to report ransomware payments.
Australian businesses are increasingly capitulating to cybercriminals, with ransomware payments hitting record levels and more organizations willing to pay, according to an alarming new report from McGrathNicol.
