Cyber insurance specialist Coalition has urged SMEs to step up digital protections after hackers broke into Qantas’ customer database.

“Although larger businesses typically make headlines, they often have the resources, such as cyber insurance, to weather such incidents,” Coalition incident response lead for Australia Praneil Kumar said.

“Conversely, SMEs usually lack both the financial resilience and protection to recover quickly. Cyber risk is a fundamental business continuity threat that SMEs must urgently prioritise.”

Coalition says SME cyber measures should include strengthening multifactor authentication protections; setting tighter staff ID verification processes at help desks and call centres; and investing in 24/7 threat detection and incident response services.

Nights, weekends and holidays are prime times for cyberattacks, as criminals seek quieter hours to breach systems, explore and disrupt them before anyone notices, it warns.