Computer systems at government agencies in Western Australia remain vulnerable to security threats, the Auditor-General has concluded for the ninth consecutive year.
Colin Murphy said after his latest annual audit of government agency information systems, that he was disappointed many of them were simply not taking the threat of risks seriously.
"As recent high profile malware threats have shown us, no agency or system is immune from these evolving and ongoing threats," Mr Murphy said on Thursday.
"I continue to report the same common weaknesses year after year, and yet many agencies are still not taking action."
This was particularly frustrating, he said, given many of the problems could be easily addressed, including poor password management and ensuring processes to recover data and operations were kept updated.
Minister for Innovation and ICT (information and communication technology) Dave Kelly told parliament on Wednesday, after the government released an updated digital security policy, that it was very fortunate the WannaCry ransomware attack a few months ago was successfully repelled as it occurred on a Friday night when systems were down.
"I am advised that we would have been much more vulnerable had that ransomware attacked our systems ... on an ordinary business day," Mr Kelly said.
The latest attack, the Petya ransomware virus that locked computers in 60 countries including Australia this week, had been detected at at least one agency but security prevented it from entering the system.
"The issue of digital security is not getting any easier," Mr Kelly said.
"It is getting more complicated."
