A global cyber security expert has warned Australian businesses that cyber attacks have the potential to get worse before they get better.

Chris Pogue, a member of the US Secret Service Electronic Crimes Task Force, is in Australia to conduct high-level security briefings with government departments in Canberra and told Fairfax Media that cyber attacks are just getting started.

"It will get worse before it gets better," Pogue said. 

"The sooner decision makers understand that there are only three types of organisations – those that have been breached, those that are currently breached (and likely don't know it) and those that are about to the breached – the better."

Pogue called data “the new oil” but warned that Australia, like many other countries, still has a “head-in-the-sand approach.”

Pogue stressed that the current approach to cyber security is not working and noted that the practice has not “truly evolved,” in twenty years.

"Prevention is not working," Pogue continued.

"It's not that people don't know they have to protect their data, they just don't do a good job at it. Even US government departments, they have the money, they can buy the resources ... and it's still not working."