Cyberattacks will cost Australian businesses about $16 billion over the next 10 years, experts are predicting.
While many people think companies bidding for massive defence projects or global corporations are targets of hackers, the truth is small businesses in regional and rural Australia are just as vulnerable.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye's Tim Wellsmore said hackers were often out to show off their skills before they graduated to making it a career.
"This happens everyday, and across every state in Australia," he said.
"We can't stop all of them."
Running the corner store in Mount Isa, or the post office in Broken Hill, is not an excuse to be underprepared.
Mr Wellsmore said anyone who thought their geography or business size made them an unlikely target "needed to get out more".
The problem brought Britain's health system to its knees in May this year, and went further when self-replicating "ransomware" quickly spread throughout computers in more than 150 countries including Australia.
The flaw in this instance?
Old and outdated computers running unsupported versions of the Windows operating system.
Once the software was opened on a vulnerable PC — the ransomware locked the user out using encryption algorithms demanding payment to regain access to the locked PC.
It is this type of attack which experts said could be exploited more readily when the business owner was complacent and less tech-savvy.
"If they don't have a security plan, that's their problem. If they're not considering it, that's their biggest problem," Mr Wellsmore said.
The South Australian Government today held a live cyber-hack demonstration at the University of South Australia to show how quickly things could go wrong online.
The third "Cyber Forum" aimed to raise awareness throughout the business community about the growing threat of cybersecurity.
The demo-hack showed how a computer system could be infiltrated with money meant to pay running expenses moved into hackers' accounts.
The hack only becomes evident when invoices went unpaid.
"A lot of people don't consider it saying 'we don't worry about those things'," Mr Wellsmore said.
"And that's where the mistakes are made."
Tech-savvy teens 'looking to show off' online
So who is at the keyboard launching these global cyber-attacks?
Matt Fabri from OpSys, another security firm helping run the hacking demo, said it might not be who you expect.
"Your profile is becoming younger and younger everyday," he said.
"I believe these type of people are just out for a bit of fun.
"They're out to prove something and show industry ... here I am. I can do something and tell their friends about it."
But what starts as online gloating can quickly turn into a cyber-hacking career.
"It's certainly a graduation," Mr Wellsmore said.
"From someone who says they can do it for fun to build their way up to understand that this is something they can do as a career.
"Their motivations can vary from nation-state focused to being financially motivated."
