Why Monitoring Vendor Cyber Security Posture Is Critical for Aged Care Resilience

In 2025, over 1,800 providers in Australia’s aged care sector remain highly exposed to cyber threats. Many are small or not-for-profit, with lean IT budgets and legacy systems that heighten their vulnerability.

The Aged Care sector is now firmly in the cyber crosshairs: 

• 10x More Attacks: CyberCX reported in 2025 that aged care and other non-hospital providers face ten times more cyber attacks than hospitals
• TPG Aged Care (2024): Attackers exfiltrated ~65GB of data from a Perth-based provider and LockBit later listed the data on a public leak site. The organisation notified ACSC and OAIC and restored systems, but the incident shows how quickly third-party weaknesses can escalate.
• St Vincent’s Health (2023): confirmed data theft, requiring extensive investigation and remediation. Cyber criminals removed data from Australia’s largest not-for-profit hospital network. St Vincent’s engaged external experts and notified regulators; after forensics, it reported no evidence of sensitive personal information stolen. 

Attackers are actively exploiting the weakest links in the aged care ecosystem: vendors and service providers that underpin daily operations.

 

The true cost of poor cyber security posture 

Ransomware is no longer an abstract cyber threat - it’s a frontline aged care issue.

• In Australia, the average ransom paid in 2024 was A$1.35m, up from A$1.03m the year prior.
• 84% of businesses chose to pay, with 75% paying within 48 hours - a window when third-party vulnerabilities move fastest.

The reality is stark: aged care providers are no longer simply managing IT risks. They are defending trust, compliance, and the very continuity of care.

Inaction risks fines and financial leakage. It also risks reputational damage and a collapse in confidence that can take years to rebuild.

The organisations that will stand resilient are those that treat cyber risk as a board-level priority, embedding continuous oversight of every vendor, contract, and third-party touchpoint into their operating model.

Why Aged Care Is Especially Vulnerable to cyber Attacks

Three systemic issues magnify cyber risk for the Aged Care sector in Australia:

• Resource-constrained oversight. Budgets are tight, governance teams are lean, and responsibility for third-party risk is often fragmented across Legal, Procurement, Risk, and Compliance, leaving no one function with the full picture.
• Legacy contracts and systems. Outdated agreements and ageing technologies lock providers into arrangements that expose vulnerabilities long since patched elsewhere.
• Shared vendor concentration. Heavy reliance on the same ICT and managed service suppliers across the sector means a single breach can cascade across multiple facilities, impacting care continuity.

Cyber Security Regulations for APAC

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC) has made its expectations clear: boards and executives must actively govern technology and cyber risk, including third-party exposure.

The aged care regulatory environment now raises the bar:

• Aged Care Act 2024: Effective from 1 November 2025, strengthens rights-based governance and oversight of providers
• Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (ACQSC): Expects governing bodies to demonstrate control of cyber risk, including third-party suppliers
• OAIC Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme: Breaches of health or identity data, including via vendors, trigger mandatory notifications
• Inspector-General of Aged Care (IGAC): Adds independent oversight, highlighting systemic governance failures.

Boards must be ready to produce audit-ready evidence of supply-chain cyber control on demand.

Continuous Vendor Monitoring: Protecting Resident Care From Cyber Disruption

Aged care providers depend on critical third parties: electronic health records, payroll systems, medication management software and managed service providers. When those suppliers are compromised, residents’ data, medication schedules, and staff rosters can be frozen overnight.

Yet most aged care organisations still rely on annual vendor due diligence questionnaires. This is a compliance checkbox that misses risks emerging in real time. That delay is untenable in an environment where attackers strike and spread within days.

To close the gap, aged care business leaders need to:

• Prioritise critical vendors. Focus continuous monitoring on core systems - EHR, payroll, MSPs - where an outage would disrupt frontline care.
• Demand live evidence. Proof of MFA, patch cadence, immutable backups, and incident playbooks should be collected continuously, not annually.
• Pre-wire crisis response. Legal, regulatory, and board pathways must be rehearsed in advance. In aged care, a “pay in the dark” default risks both compliance and resident safety.

Vendor Risk Management for Aged Care: Protecting Residents from Cyber Threats

Aged care organisations are increasingly targeted by ransomware attacks that exploit third-party weaknesses. Gatekeeper, powered by LuminIQ AI Agents, enables boards and leadership teams to act under pressure, when fast, informed decisions are essential to protect both operations and residents.

With a unified platform, your business can:

• Identify and block high-risk vendors before they access clinical systems
• Maintain always-on compliance, with live tracking of insurance, credentials, and audit artefacts
• Surface hidden vendor contract vulnerabilities, such as missing breach notification clauses or inadequate indemnities

Gatekeeper embeds resilience into every stage of the vendor relationship. As the only unified contract, spend and third-party risk management platform, it delivers the visibility and assurance boards now require and regulators demand when it comes to cybersecurity.

Conclusion

The new Aged Care Act signals that cyber resilience is no longer optional. For boards, the obligation is clear: prove control across internal systems and third-party vendors.

Providers that delay will face regulatory sanction, reputational loss and operational disruption. Those that lead decisively will not only meet expectations but set a higher standard of trust and resident safety.

Gatekeeper gives care providers the monitoring and assurance to govern with confidence, satisfy regulators, and protect what matters most.

Book a demo today to see how Gatekeeper enables continuous vendor monitoring, perpetual audit readiness, and board-level assurance for aged care providers.