The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and National Seniors Australia (NSA) announced it would provide national cyber advice after several cyber-related arrests.
The AFP will use October’s Cyber Awareness Month and Seniors’ Week to advocate the NSA’s new 90-second videos about public cybercrime prevention while providing extra education for those less digitally savvy in the community.
On Oct. 12, AFP Acting Assistant Commissioner Cyber Command Paula Hudson reminded all Australians to be cyber aware after the AFP arrested alleged offenders and returned money to scam victims in recent cybercrime operations.
During one operation, the AFP Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre (JPC3) charged a Melbourne man for allegedly laundering more than $176,000 (US$111,000) stolen from businesses on Jul. 23.
He allegedly deposited the funds in multiple accounts, one of which was allegedly from a business email compromise (BEC) attack on an Australian construction company. The company allegedly lost over $17,000 from a fraudulent email asking to pay funds into a bank account allegedly in the man’s name.
In a separate incident, five foreign nationals were accused and charged in Sydney and Brisbane for flying to Australia to install ATM card skimmers and create fake bank cards on Aug. 13.
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To stay safe and avoid the consequences of similar scams, the AFP asked less digitally savvy seniors to avoid clicking unsolicited links in email or text, block calls from suspected scammers, and immediately call financial institutions if suspicious activity occurs.
Ms. Hudson said simple conversations between grandchildren and grandparents could also go a long way to protect the vulnerable.
“Grandchildren—whether 20- or 40-years-old—can be one of the most significant lines of defence for older generations in the online world,” she said.
“We have found in the past that some older Australians who have become the victim of cybercrime become embarrassed and blame themselves. Often, they do not tell anyone, and that’s what we need to change,” Ms. Hudson said, adding, “We do not want any victim of crime to be ashamed.”
Further, NSA Chief Operating Officer Chris Grice said older people less familiar with digital technology were more likely to be scammed, according to NSA research.
“With the removal of cheques and the transition towards a cashless society, seniors have no choice but to transact online, exposing them to potential cybercrimes,” he said.
He said fear of scamming prevents many elders from engaging online to0, noting one 70-year-old who said, “There are so many scams and hackers on digital services I would feel unsafe using one to do personal business.”
“We encourage seniors to take advantage of the valuable resources offered by the AFP and other government agencies,” he said.
“As a community, we need to ensure that older Australians can participate online and be safe doing so.”
Cyber Crime On the Rise
The need for AFP to increase online safety resources arose after cybercrime was reported 76,000 times (once every 7 minutes) from July 2021 to June 2022, a 13 percent increase from the previous financial year, according to Australian Signals Directorate’s Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ASD’s ACSC) latest Cyber Threat Report (pdf).Fraud, online shopping, and banking were the top reported cybercrime types, accounting for 54 percent.
Meanwhile, the average cost per report was $39,000 for small businesses, $88,000 for medium companies, and over $62,000 for large corporations, an average increase of 14 percent.
Further, over 25,000 calls (69 per day) were made to the Cyber Security Hotline, an average increase of 15 percent.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said too many Australians felt the impacts of a heightened level of malicious cyber activity from threat actors who continue to find “innovative ways” to penetrate government and organisation cyber defences.
As a result, the government considers cyber security and reinforcing online resilience a national priority.
For example, ASD’s ACSC responded to over 1,100 cyber security incidents, blocked over 24 million malicious domain requests, took down over 15,000 domains hosting malicious software, and published 49 alerts and 14 advisories on cyber.gov.au, according to the report.
Australians Are More Scam Aware Than Ever
However, increased cybercrime led to the majority of Australians becoming more “scam-aware” than ever before, with more than eight in 10 people saying they are confident in their ability to recognise and avoid scams, including a quarter who say they are very confident, according to Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) research on Sept. 23.The results revealed 68 percent of surveyed Australians are cautious about answering calls from unknown numbers, up slightly from 65 percent in 2022.
About 61 percent don’t click on unknown links via text message, higher than 57 percent in 2022.
Meanwhile, 58 percent checked texts and emails for spelling and grammar mistakes that could indicate a scam, up from 54 percent in 2022.
Furthermore, three in four (76 percent) were more cautious about communicating online as it could be AI, with 74 percent agreeing that AI is making it harder to recognise and avoid scams.
CBA’s Fraud Management Services General Manager James Roberts said it’s positive news people are growing more aware of scams and what they can do to stay safe.
Mr. Roberts urged people to continue to ‘Stop, Check, and Reject’ when sending money or banking details.
“However, we all have more to do, including continuing to strengthen our defences across all financial institutions, telcos, government, social media and digital platforms to protect Australians from the terrible impact the scammers have,” he said.
