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Socceroos captain Mat Ryan is blaming himself after the world's best footballer helped end Australia's best World Cup.

Argentina ace Lionel Messi scored with a sublime strike in a 2-1 win in a round of 16 encounter to eliminate the plucky Socceroos from the showpiece tournament in Qatar.

But Ryan is lamenting his own messy moment.

The keeper gifted Argentina a second goal when losing control of the ball at his feet, his heavy touches mirroring his heavy heart post-game.

"It's hard, it's tough," Ryan told reporters.

"You feel an array of negative emotions.

"We learn from the hardships in life and that is definitely one for me and it hurts a lot."

Ryan's foot fault came as two Argentinians swarmed on him after a back-pass.

The Australian completely lost control of the ball with his second touch and Julian Alvarez mopped up, scoring into a vacant net.

"Maty has been a fantastic captain ... a fantastic player," Socceroos coach Graham Arnold said.

"Everyone makes mistakes."

Just 20 minutes after Ryan's error, the Socceroos were revived when substitute Craig Goodwin's long-range speculative shot deflected from Argentina's Enzo Fernandez into the net.

And only three minutes later, Australia's bundle of energy Aziz Behich went on a daring run, tearing through Argentina's defence and, as his eyes lit up when five metres from folklore, his shot was blocked.

"If Aziz Behich had scored that, it would've been like Lionel Messi in a yellow shirt," Arnold said.

With a minute remaining, the youngest Socceroo ever to play at a World Cup, 18-year-old Garang Kuol, went inches from equalising when his gilt-edged chance thumped into the left arm of Argentina's goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.

"Garang had a great chance at the end but he's a kid, he'll learn from it," Arnold said.

The late dramas came after Messi hit yet another landmark with a first goal in a World Cup knockout game and the ninth of his cup career.

"I'm very happy for taking another step forward, achieving another objective," Messi said after his side booked a quarter-final berth against the Netherlands.

"It was a very difficult match. We knew it was going to be this way, we knew it was going to be a very physical match and they were very strong."

The Australians leave Qatar after their best overall performance at the World Cup, with two wins in a single edition of the tournament for the first time.

They also kept consecutive clean sheets for the first time in cup history.

But, just as the only other Socceroos team to advance from the group-stage did in 2006, they depart at the round of 16.

And Arnold's contract as coach has now expired.

"I just want to go away, have a good holiday, have a break and see what happens," Arnold said.

"I have worked extremely hard this campaign to get to where we've got to with these players.

"I need a break. I need a rest. And no doubt I will have good discussions then with the organisation."

Arnold's Socceroos defied gloomy predictions in Qatar - he was almost sacked in March after the qualifying campaign stumbled and Australia were the second-to-last nation to secure a cup spot.

"Before we came here everyone said we were the worst Socceroo team ever to qualify for a World Cup and we were the worst Socceroo team ever," Arnold said.

"That has gone now.

"Even though we have ... been successful, I feel like we have failed tonight.

"I just wanted to win so badly for the nation ... making the last 16 for me wasn't enough, I wanted more."

© AAP 2022

General practice will cease to exist unless there's a drastic overhaul of frontline medical services, the new head of Australia's peak body for GPs warns.

Incoming Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Nicole Higgins says she will spend her next two years advocating for dramatic change, with the organisation's 40,000 members "struggling" due to diminished funding and workforce shortages.

"It's not going to exist," Dr Higgins told AAP.

"It's dire. I'm really worried about what's going to happen to general practice."

The Mackay-based clinician has first hand experience of what she calls the GP crisis and says she is currently facing "very challenging decisions" about cutting appointment times so her practice of five years, which employs nine doctors, can remain viable.

"As soon as you move past the eastern seaboard, there's practices just closing left right and centre and that's devastating for communities," she said.

At the other end of the spectrum, Dr Higgins says she's concerned that most politicians seem to have "very low levels of literacy around health systems and general practice".

The voices of patients, particularly those in marginal outer metro electorates, will therefore be key to keeping up the pressure on vital issues such as access to services and waiting times that could otherwise fall off the radar.

"It's mobilising our patients and our voters to actually now push back and tell MPs this is really affecting our community," she said.

The Australian Medical Association predicts a nation-wide shortfall of about 10,600 GPs within 10 years.

Right now there's a shortage of about 8000 nurses across the country and while the extent of a similar scarcity within allied health is not known, unions estimate it to also be in thousands.

At the same time, Dr Higgins says she is determined to push back against efforts to expand the roles of other health professionals which have traditionally fallen to general practitioners.

Take that to mean increased workloads for nurses, and trials in Queensland and Victoria allowing pharmacists to prescribe antibiotics and fill scripts for the contraceptive pill.

"It's the whole sector that's in difficulty and we just can't keep plugging round holes with square plugs," she said.

In recent years, Australia has produced about 4000 medical graduates but less than one in six have or are likely to pursue general practice as a specialty.

"General practice is undervalued, it's underfunded," Dr Higgins said.

"Graduates are not wanting to come into GP."

GP funding increases are less than two per cent each year. It's a figure she says is nowhere near enough and something she intends to address by advocating for increased incentives for bulk billing and longer consultations.

She also wants an end to "double dipping" in hospitals, a practice whereby outpatient clinics claim money intended for general practice through the Medicare Benefits Schedule.

Elsewhere, and with over half the RACGP's members having done their primary degree overseas, Dr Higgins believes more must be done to slash the red tape forcing some already-qualified international doctors to fork out up to $40,000 for six years of additional training.

More generally, she says her early discussions with the federal government and opposition have gone well. It's something she is keen to maintain transparency around but she sees her role as being about more than raising issues and making public appearances.

"It's making sure you're doing everything behind the scenes to bring the funders, the politicians, the decision makers to the table and then to also be informing members," she said.

© AAP 2022

Australian hospitals could be forced to pay ransoms to criminals to keep patients safe as the cyber security threat escalates in the aftermath of "wake-up call" attacks.

The troubling warning is high on the list of predictions offered by cyber security experts heading into 2023 and in the wake of unprecedented hacks affecting millions of Medibank and Optus customers.

Global firm Palo Alto Networks suggests it's time hospitals, government services and businesses start discussing whether they'd pay a ransom and how much they'd fork out.

"What are your crown jewels and if someone wants to get access to that, how much is it worth to you? says regional chief security officer Sean Duca.

"(What if) you've got people sitting mid-operation on an operating table and the systems around them can't actually work (because they're locked down)? Do we just let the individual die because we don't want to pay the ransom?"

While Australians are increasingly aware of the consequences of cybercrime, there's not enough focus on its potential to cripple systems, Mr Duca warns.

As for organisations that refuse to believe they will be targeted: "It's a foreseeable event ... and you're probably a little bit delusional."

Edith Cowan University senior computing and security lecturer Mohiuddin Ahmed shares the sentiment.

He not only predicts a rise in threats over the next year, he anticipates more attempts targeting Australia's critical infrastructure, with "highly digitised" hospital systems among the potential casualties.

It is "just the beginning" for cyber attempts and attacks, Dr Ahmed warns. The recent Medibank and Optus hacks may drive criminals to consider where Australia has other vulnerabilities.

"We use lots of internet-connected healthcare devices and if those devices are hacked and remotely compromised by these cyber criminals, we'll be left in a situation where we have to pay ransom, otherwise people's lives will be at stake," he says.

"Imagine that for senior citizens using pacemakers or any other embedded or implanted devices.

"Who knows, if we do not pay attention, if we do not follow cyber hygiene, things (may) go catastrophic."

International hackers are praying on Australia partly because of its wealth and partly because it has been rendered vulnerable by the COVID pandemic, cost-of-living pressures and natural disasters including floods, Dr Ahmed says.

Cyber security researcher Mamoun Alazab likens cybercrime to a battlefield, saying it's a matter of when - not if - Australia will see data leaks affecting more people than in the Medibank and Optus hacks.

The associate professor of information technology at Charles Darwin University predicts greater government organisation in cyber warfare as it becomes part of national security.

Australia's Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil last month announced a 100-strong, standing cybercrime operation targeting hackers led by federal police and Australian Signals Directorate.

Cyber attacks are expected to double in Australia within five years and the country will also experience a shortage of 3000 highly-skilled cyber security workers by 2026, according to a national plan.

Dr Alazab cautions that publicly announcing the new operation could goad criminals into further attacks.

"We focus so much on (Australia's) offensive operation - we need to focus on the defensive operation," he says.

"We are encouraging other ... criminal groups to get together to prove us wrong, to cause more embarrassment."

Australia needs to significantly scale up its cyber security investment to keep pace with crime, Dr Alazab suggests.

He points to the $42 billion cost of cyber incidents to Australian businesses in 2021, saying it's just "the tip of the iceberg".

"Did we invest 10 per cent of that in security? No, we did not," he says.

Dr Alazab predicts more individuals and enterprises will be targeted and "botnets" - a collection of hijacked computers used to launch attacks without their owners' knowledge - will become larger.

Australia could also see the arrival of what Dr Ahmed calls "ransomware 3.0" whereby cyber criminals don't bother immediately announcing they've hacked a system - instead, taking the time to identify and exfiltrate sensitive data.

Then they can suddenly strike, for example, rerouting Centrelink payments from legitimate benefactors into their own bank accounts before asking for ransom to restore the legitimate data.

"It might happen in 2023 but again, I hope it doesn't," Dr Ahmed says.

The experts say hope is not lost when it comes to Australians defending themselves against attack.

Dr Alazab says Australia needs to have a collective approach towards cyber security, building a strong public-private partnership and bolstering the workforce by filling the education gap.

Small and medium organisations can also turn to resources like the Australian Cyber Security Centre's "Exercise in a Box", he suggests.

All Australian organisations should also have cyber security insurance moving forward, Dr Ahmed says.

"This Medibank and Optus breach is the perfect wake-up call for everyday Australians and, more importantly, for the critical infrastructure, the government agencies and the private sector."

© AAP 2022