National Australia Bank (NAB) has partnered with Microsoft to provide a free cyber assessment tool to help Aussie small businesses prepare for and recover from a cyber-attack. Through this partnership, NAB aims to launch a free small business cyber assessment tool to help prepare against attacks.

The self-assessment tool is tailored to each business, takes less than two hours to complete, and asks questions about the organisation's security, data, and IT environment. The results are then used to provide the participants with personalised advice on how to improve cybersecurity for their businesses. These tools are already available for all Australian businesses.

A tool to combat cybercrime for small business Following the official announcement, NAB stated that the tool could help small businesses determine their cyber maturity and make informed decisions to protect their business, employees, and customers in the future. According to the latest research by the Australian Signals Directorate, small to medium businesses lost an average of USD 71,600 in 2023 due to cybercrime, and incidents surged by 23%. This is because cybercriminals are increasing their tactics, targeting high-profile Australian businesses regularly and impacting everyone from the hospital system, legal system, and business community.

Moreover, as the official press release shows, there is an increase in phishing scams and ransomware which all continue to be among the top cyber threats that NAB customers report and across the industry. NAB’s Consumer and Business Insights research on scams education indicates that small and medium businesses are one of the least cyber-prepared sectors, with just 15% conducting extensive training around scams and cyber security risks. On this background, the Government’s recent cyber security strategy places small businesses at the centre of its efforts.

The aim is to transform this market from one of the least prepared sectors in the country to a resilient community group. Therefore, this new tool NAB will help the small business sector to respond if they are caught up in a hack. More previous NAB precautions National Australia Bank is a locally owned public company that derives revenue through the provision of banking services, leasing, housing and general finance, international, investment and private banking wealth management services, custodian, trustee and nominee services, and credit and access card facilities.

Throughout 2023, NAB has introduced several new measures designed to protect its customers over the last six months. Some of these measures involved the introduction of payment prompts, blocking the use of links in suspicious text messages, and tackling spoofing. Moreover, in July 2023, the bank blocked more than AUD 270 million in customer payments citing cryptocurrency scam concerns.

Specifically, NAB put a stop to an undisclosed number of transactions to crypto platforms that raised red flags between March 2023 and July 2023. .