Cybertrace routinely monitors trends and developments of scams both in Australia and internationally. Although financial institution scams have been active for many years, we’ve recently seen a spike in these types of scams in Australia.
The level of sophistication is evolving and at first glance the email appears to be genuine. In many instances, the scammers claim to be acting in your interest to detect and prevent fraud. They may claim to have disabled or suspended your online account and encourage you to click a button to re-activate your account, sign in to your account or provide identity documents to verify your identity.
Banks and financial institutions are unlikely to email you and request this from you. This type of email should be seen with suspicion and Cybertrace recommends you contact your bank by phone via a number listed on the financial institution’s official website. Don’t call any number listed in the email or click any buttons or links!
The Australian Banking Association provides the following advice in these situations.
- Don’t provide your PIN or internet banking login or password to anyone.
- Guard the following identity information carefully and only provide to trusted people and entities: date of birth, current address, driver’s licence number and passport details.
- Delete spam and scam e-mail – if the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- Keep your anti-virus and firewall software up to date.
- Do not respond to requests that ask you to call unknown or unverified phone numbers.
- Be very careful about clicking on links in emails. Do not use links to access trusted websites. Enter the correct address for websites into the address bar of your browser.
Click here for more information from the Australian Banking Association.
Stay cyber-safe and stay in front of the scammers.
Cybertrace is a private cyber-fraud investigations and intelligence company based in Australia. If you’ve been the victim of cyber fraud, contact us to discuss how we can help.
