Last year was scarily lucrative for online scammers. According to Scamwatch, Australians lost a record-breaking $323 million in 2021 alone, with more than quarter-million reports filed describing different investment, romance, and shopping scams.
Even more bad news: the trend seems to be getting worse.
Cybersecurity company Proofpoint reports that losses due to scams spiked by more than 50% in January 2022 compared to the same time last year. Over the course of a single month, more than $34 million dollars went down the drain.
Senior Director at Proofpoint Adrian Covich comments, “With scammers and cybercriminals continuously reinventing their tactics […], there is every chance we will see these statistics continue to rise this year.”
So what kind of scams should Australians watch out for, and how can you safeguard yourself against them?
What are the most common ways to get scammed?
Due to the current ubiquity of the internet, most scams these days are digital in nature. Online scammers extort vulnerable populations for money or materials by making fraudulent emails, text messages, or phone calls under some pretext.
The most prevalent kinds of online scams are investment, romance, gambling, phishing, identity theft, and extortion scams.
Investment scams
Investment scams are the most…
