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First published: 06 Jul 2026
Last updated: 06 Jul 2026

Content written for

Small & medium business

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The Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD’s ACSC) has developed this guidance to help medium-sized businesses defend against cyber attacks that involve the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Hackers may use AI to rapidly discover and exploit vulnerabilities - especially in internet-facing services such as websites, target many victims at once, and rapidly progress an attack from initial compromise to data theft or extortion.

Recommended actions - immediate

HIDE

Discuss this guidance with the CEO, cyber security and IT personnel, and cloud and managed service providers.

HIDE

Regularly identify internet-facing services, such as website servers and email servers, and remove those that are not necessary.

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Remove or replace internet-facing services that do not receive security patches (or security updates) from their vendors.

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Rapidly apply all security patches (or security updates) for internet-facing services, applied automatically if the risk of a faulty patch is low.

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Configure web browsers and operating systems on user computing devices to automatically apply security patches (or security updates).

Recommended actions - short-term

HIDE

Prepare and exercise plans to remediate cyber security incidents, including restoring from backups that are recent, tested, and protected from unauthorised access, modification and deletion.

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Prepare and exercise plans to continue business operations during cyber security incidents, including testing the ability to rapidly block network traffic and reset all user passwords.

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Block unnecessary network communication between each internet-facing service, and between internet-facing services and other corporate computing devices.

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Securely configure internet-facing services to run using an account with the minimum privileges required, and disable or remove unnecessary functionality and insecure settings.

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Promptly review security logs from internet-facing services to identify and respond to cyber security incidents.

Recommended actions - medium-term

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For internet-facing services, consider using software-as-a-service cloud services that are rapidly patched by reputable cloud service providers.

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Choose vendors that develop securely designed software with minimal vulnerabilities, and securely provide adequately-tested patches rapidly after vulnerabilities are identified.

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Use AI carefully (in a secure, controlled and human-supervised manner) to find and confirm vulnerabilities in code you build for internet-facing services.

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Use AI carefully to assist with analysing security logs from internet-facing services, and performing penetration tests and vulnerability assessments of internet-facing services.

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Consider which other corporate computing devices would benefit from timely patching, use of least privilege accounts, secure configuration, and prompt analysis of security logs.

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