iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has revealed a new scam campaign targeting Mandarin speakers in Australia.
The scammers are sending both phone messages and emails purporting to be from the ACMA, claiming that illegal activity has been detected on a user’s phone service and that it will be cut off unless action is taken.
“Scammers are targeting people who speak Mandarin by pretending to represent a government agency. Some calls also give an English language option,” the ACMA alert read.
“The scammer will claim there has been illegal activity involving your phone number and threaten to disconnect the service. These calls and emails may look as if they are coming from an actual ACMA phone number or email address. They may also mention genuine ACMA contact phone numbers or website addresses. This is a trick used by scammers to convince you the call or email is genuine.”
The ACMA recommends anyone receiving such a scam message to not respond, and to hang up or delete the message. The ACMA will not, it has said, ever threaten to disconnect a phone number — the scammers are just trying to harvest useful personal information.
The scammers have also been claiming to represent other government agencies.
Scams cost Australians over $3.1 billion last year, a 55 per cent increase over 2021. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) believes that the large data breaches that occurred during 2022 were in part behind the increase, as the data of more Australians than ever before surfaced on the dark web.
“In the weeks after the data breaches, there were hundreds of reports to Scamwatch, including reports of scammers impersonating government departments and businesses to carry out identity theft and remote access scams,” said Catriona Lowe, deputy chair of the ACCC, in April 2023.
The Australian government announced this month (May 2023) it will put aside $86.5 million to establish a National Anti-Scam Centre (NASC).
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
