CISO Perth 2025: ransomware trends and cybersecurity innovation

CISO Perth 2025, hosted by Corinium Global Intelligence, brought together over 35 cyber leaders to discuss the future of cybersecurity in Australia. Key topics included ransomware trends, vendor risk management best practices, and incident response innovation.

Matt O’Kane delivered the event’s standout presentation on ransomware mitigation trends in 2025, bringing energy and practical wisdom through real-world case studies.

“Clutter is the enemy,” O’Kane said. He emphasised ensuring defensible decision-making by prioritising functional, informational, and recovery aspects of incidents.

“Leverage tools that can reduce tool clutter,” he said. “Use cloud to better secure during an incident.”

The event sparked important discussions around third-party cyber risk, questioning whether organisations place unrealistic security expectations on vendors. A simplified vendor assessment approach emerged using just two key questions: does the vendor have security assurance certification such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, or IRAP? Do they support Single Sign-On?

This simplified method reportedly addresses 90 per cent of security concerns.