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Callous Scammers Exploit Bushfire Crisis

Increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals are exploiting the nations devastating bushfire crisis to trick organisations out of thousands of dollars.

Cyber security firm, InfoTrust, say they are seeing an increase in attacks from scammers targeting the ‘goodwill’ of Australians during the crisis for financial gain.

‘This kind of attack preys on the good-will of the Australian public. Whenever there are major events or natural disasters, we frequently see the scammers leverage this to their gain,’ says InfoTrust CEO, Dane Meah.

(AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)

‘Every day we are seeing new and more sophisticated phishing attacks aimed at key personnel within businesses, but this is the first time we’ve heard bushfire being used to help the scammer prove authenticity of the emails being sent.’

Recent examples of the scams involve hackers accessing to an organisations system to send. Fraudulent emails to the company’s suppliers that are linked to their bank accounts.

The company says email scams and account takeovers are being conducted by UK/Nigerian cyber-gangs with global co-conspirators and the impact is being seen in Australia.

The gangs are run like modern corporations duping unwitting professionals out of millions of dollars annually.

(AAP Image/Sean Davey)



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