He was the founder and managing director of the Perth-based telecommunications provider iinet starting the business in his parents' garage.
The company outgrew its suburban home in 1995 and moved to Perth CBD office accommodation yet its early growth during the Internet boom was hampered by the ability of Telstra (not releasing Bigpond as an ISP until 1997) to cope with the demand of needed telephone lines, and by the sheer competitive pressure in the Perth market, which had a comparative oversupply of low-cost providers.
[5] Malone was a lead witness and spokesperson in the Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd copyright case that was successful in the High Court of Australia.
[6] Malone stepped aside as managing director in early 2014 after taking a three-week holiday in Argentina which was supposed to be a three-month to six-month sabbatical.
[9][10] After leaving iiNet, Malone co-founded and was chairman of Perth-based information security company Diamond Cyber,[11][12] which was sold to CyberCX in 2020.