A new report from cybersecurity company Proofpoint has revealed that from January to June 2022, Aussies were scammed out of $295 million, more than double the $139 million from the first half of 2021.
Via analysis of data from the ACCC’s Scamwatch, Proofpoint made a number of key findings that suggests that scams are evolving to become more effective.
| Top Five Scams January – June 2022 | |||
| Amount lost | Number of Reports | ||
| Investment scams | $219,515,541 | Phishing | 31,974 |
| Dating and romance | $16,454,408 | Online shopping | 8,959 |
| Remote access | $14,960,193 | False billing | 8,917 |
| False billing | $10,860,525 | Identity theft | 6,961 |
| Phishing | $4,731,900 | Remote access | 6,614 |
Despite the financial hit of scams more than doubling and approaching $300 million, the number of reported scams dripped from 124,321 in 2021 to 105,153 in 2022. This suggests that scammers are becoming “more sophisticated” and are taking much larger sums of money in less attempts.
Investment scams took the crown for being the most financially damaging, with over $219 million in losses reported in the first six months of 2022, a jump from $177 million during the entirety of 2021. Dating and romance followed with $16 million in losses.
Phishing scams were the most commonly reported, with counts reaching almost 32,000 from last years 28,500. More than half of these were SMS phishing scams. Online shopping scams came in second with 8,959 reports, and were mostly delivered online.
It seems that phones are…
