HAVE YOU BEEN HACKED?

EXPERTS SHARE HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF

Scam activity is on the rise. Companies from Optus to Medibank have suffered breaches in recent months, leaving millions of customers vulnerable to having their private information, and money, stolen.

Last year alone, Australians lost over $2 billion to sophisticated scams with the figure only set to rise. So what can we do to protect ourselves? The answer, according to Tim Falinski, managing director of cybersecurity company Trend Micro, is education.

“There has never been a more important time to know the telltale signs of a scammer,” Tim says, warning con artists have continued to evolve and update their tactics.

Trend Micro research shows the most common cons circulating are: romance scams where criminals create fake profiles on social media and dating apps to look for victims; online shopping scams via online stores offering too-good-to-be-true sales that lure people into buying items that never arrive; phishing scams sent by email, text or fake websites designed to steal your credit card information and passwords; and investment and crypto scams using celebrity endorsements and promises of risk-free returns to trick people into downloading harmful apps.