Australians lost a record $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, an 80% increase over the previous year. Most losses concerned investment scams, followed by remote access and payment redirection scams.
Data collected by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s Scamwatch, ReportCyber, and other agencies found that while the number of scam reports submitted decreased by 16.5% to under 240,000, the average financial loss per victim rose by 50% to $20,000.
The increase in the effectiveness of scams is attributed to scammers’ growing sophistication in the themes used, making scams more believable. The new tactics used include impersonating official phone numbers, email addresses, and websites of legitimate organizations, as well as scam texts that appear in the same conversation thread as genuine messages. “Hi Mom” and “toll/Linkt” text scams had an explosive growth of 469% in 2022, resulting in nearly $25 million in losses.
Data breaches were the most significant driver, creating opportunities for scammers to use as bait for fraudulent communications with targets. In 2022, hundreds of reports to Scamwatch followed data breaches, including reports of scammers impersonating government departments and businesses to carry out identity theft and remote access scams.
Noteworthy security incidents that scammers abused include the Optus data breach in September 2022, which resulted in the personal data leak of 11 million customers of the telecommunications company.
The most significant data breach in Australia for 2023 is Latitude Financial, impacting 14 million customers of the personal loans service provider. In late 2022, the Australian state approved a bill amending the country’s privacy legislation, setting a maximum penalty of AU$50 million for firms that suffer large-scale data breaches.
The ACCC’s Deputy Chair, Catriona Lowe, urged Australians to be vigilant and verify the identity of anyone who contacts them for personal or financial information.
