The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) says Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams in 2022. This is an 80% increase over the total losses recorded in 2021. Investment scams accounted for the most losses, at $1.5 billion. This is followed by remote access scams at $229 million and payment redirection scams at $224 million. This is based off data collected by ACCC’s Scamwatch, ReportCyber, the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX), IDCARE and various other government agencies. It was noted that the most significant driver was through data breaches, which had a record year in Australia in 2022. There were hundreds of reports of scammers impersonating government departments and businesses to carry out identity theft and remote access scams in the weeks after a data breach.
This segment was created for the It’s 5:05 podcast