Significant decline in Australian data breaches in 2023.

The report released by Surfshark revealed Australia recorded a 92 per cent drop in leaked accounts during the first quarter of 2023, compared the previous year.

Cyber attacks plummeted from 15 breached accounts per minute to just one, marking a significant improvement in cybersecurity.

Surfshark's Agneska Sablovskaja said governments and companies must remain vigilant.

"According to Surfshark's study, data breaches declined globally in the first quarter of 2023, if we compare it to the previous one," she said.

"However, the fact that over 40 million accounts were breached in just a few months is still a cause for concern.

"Those whose data was compromised are at an increased risk of being targeted by cybercriminals as their personal information can be utilized for phishing attacks, fraud, identity theft, and other serious cybercrimes."

The positive trend was not limited to Australia alone, as the global landscape also experienced a decline in data breaches in the same period.

The first quarter of 2023 recorded a total of 41.6 million breached accounts worldwide, nearly 50 per cent lower than the 81 million breaches from the fourth quarter of 2022.

Russia emerged as the country with the highest number of leaked accounts, accounting for one-sixth of all breaches.

The United States followed closely behind with five million breached accounts, while Taiwan (3.9m), France (3.2m), and Spain (3.2m) rounded out the top five.

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But despite the overall decrease, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Czechia and Armenia experienced significant growth in the number of breaches.

Examining the regional impact of data breaches, Europe emerged as the most affected region, followed by Asia and North America.