The everyday activities leaving Australians vulnerable to cybercrimes

A new report has revealed Australians are targeted by cybercriminals every seven minutes.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) said there were 76,000 reports of cybercrime, a 13 per cent rise in 12 months.

Fraud, online shopping and online banking were the top reported cybercrime types in the past financial year, accounting for 54 per cent of all reports.

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Meanwhile, hackers who targeted business email accounts generally focused on high-value financial transactions such as property settlements.

Australia's more populous states continue to report more cybercrime, including Queensland and Victoria.

However people in the Northern Territory and Western Australia had the highest reported average losses where a financial loss occurred, with more than $40,000 and $29,000 per cybercrime report respectively.

Both state actors and criminals are indiscriminately targeting Australians with cyber space increasingly becoming a realm for both crime and warfare, the ACSC says.

"In the last 12 months, we witnessed this sustained integration of cyber with conventional warfare in Ukraine, and the coalescence of powerful and disruptive cybercrime, gangs and nation states combining efforts in that conflict," Abigail Bradshaw, the head of the ACSC, said.

"That has been profound and new."

The ACSC warns that up to 200,000 Australian home and office routers are at risk of being taken over by hackers.

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Fraud made up 27 per cent of reports, while ransomware - when hackers breach a network, steal sensitive date and then demand money for not releasing it - accounted for just 0.6 per cent.

The major data breaches against telco Optus and health insurer Medibank have propelled ransomware attacks into the forefront of public concern.

The data of 2.1 million Optus customers was compromised, while all Medibank customers, including ahm and international, had their personal data exposed to hackers.

Despite the low number of ransomware incidents reports, the ACSC noted that ransomware attacks were likely underreported "especially by victims who choose to pay a ransom".

EXPLAINED: What to do if you have been hacked

ACSC has recommended individuals take the following steps to protect themselves from cybercrime:

• Update your devices and replace old devices that do not receive updates
• Activate multi-factor authentication
• Regularly backup your devices
• Set secure passphrases
• Watch out for scams
• Sign up to the ACSC's free Alert Service
• Report a cybercrime to the ACSC