Unfortunately there are those who prey on the unsuspecting in times of crisis. First, we saw a rise in scams during the Australian bush fires, and now we are seeing an influx of opportunistic scams designed to take advantage of the COVID-19 situation. 

This is the sad reality of the world we live in where you and your business needs a defence in depth approach to combat this.

The ACCC’s SCAMWATCH recently reported over 140 instances over the previous 3 months of phishing emails with malware or malicious links in them attempting to capitalise on the desire for trusted information during the crisis.

The links send to fake websites that instantly installs a virus to your device and eventually giving cyber criminals access to your accounts and personal information. It is expected that these types of attempts will increase in volume over the coming weeks and months.

Don't fall for these scams and protect your personal information and business.

User education is a vital part. Ensuring you, and if you have staff, that they are also well informed of potential risks and educating them on how to spot these risks.

The Australian Government has an excellent resource around this and in particular, how to spot and deal with them. You can read this excellent article on the Staysmart Online website: Staysmart Online HERE

But, as a quick insight, the article identifies five (5) examples of what the attacks / scams may look like.

Scam Examples

Example 1: SMS phishing scam messages offering where to get tested for COVID-19 or how to protect yourself,

Example 2: COVID-19 phishing email impersonating Australia Post to steal personal information,

Example 3: Phishing emails pretending to be an international health sector organisation,

Example 4: Phishing emails containing malicious attachments,

Example 5: COVID-19 relief payment scam.

What to do?

In short, read any message very carefully, and if it doesn’t feel right, delete it and certainly don’t click on any link in it.

Look for things that are not quite normal compared to a ‘normal’ message you would or could expect to receive from that agency.

Again, more excellent info in the Staysmart Online article here: Staysmart Online