Telstra wants its Bigpond customers to know the lengths it is going to in order to protect them from incoming email scams.
Telstra Asia Pacific CISO Narelle Devine said between January and October the telco blocked an average of 332 million scam emails each month, averaging out to a whopping 7,685 every 60 seconds.
These nefarious emails make up 38 per cent of all inbound emails to Bigpond accounts.
“Email scams are not only annoying, many are also malicious and may potentially lead to a criminal stealing your money and personal information, accessing your Internet banking or attempting to infect your contacts with malware,” Devine explains.
Telstra notes that most common email-based scams they intercept are emails containing malware attachments, invitations to hand over personal details to scammers, and impersonation scams designed to trick users into sharing personal or sensitive information – including banking and credit card details.
“As Australians become savvier, email attacks are also becoming more convincing,” Devine notes.
“Recently, more bank scams, fake toll road scams and fake job offer scams are appearing in a bid to lure new victims.”
According to ACCC’s Scamwatch, email is the third most commonly reported mode of attack in Australia with 33,287 reports. Phone is still the most common (51,234) followed by SMS scams (50,947).