Attack methods: social engineering and vulnerability exploitation
Two methods account for most high-impact incidents against law firms in 2025: manipulation of people and exploitation of unpatched software. Brett Chase, director of sales engineering for APJ at Cohesity, told Security Brief Australia that the pattern extends across sectors. “Identity is at the core of today’s cyber threat landscape. Nine out of 10 cyberattacks now start with identity through compromised credentials or misused identities. In Australia, the rise of materially significant cyber incidents makes it clear that weak or inconsistent identity management practices remain a major but preventable root cause,” Chase said. On the technical side, the M-Trends 2026 Report recorded a 42% rise in zero-day vulnerability exploitation during 2025, cited in the QBE report, with VPNs, firewalls, file transfer platforms, and AI tools all targeted at scale.
