If you’ve recently fallen victim to an online scam, you’re not alone. With giants such as Medibank and Optus being hacked, it seems no one is safe. It’s for this reason that it’s now more important than ever to scrub up on your digital literacy skills, so you can recognise a scam before it hits you.
Digital Literacy Foundation Digital Director Chris Olsen says that though it’s not entirely the fault of the individual, human error plays a role in the vast majority of scams.
“It takes a certain level of understanding to be able to spot an email, for example, that may be a vulnerability tactic or a risk of any type,” he said.
“The majority of all attacks, 95 per cent of them, occur because the user lets it occur, or the user has somehow allowed the attacker in.”
Though text message and email scams are always around, as we move closer to the holiday season more and more people are learning that if a sale online looks too good to be true, it probably is.
When it comes to identifying and avoiding scams when shopping online for loved ones, Mr Olsen has a few tips.
“One very important way to avoid getting your credit card number stolen is to use PayPal. You can use PayPal as a shield, to hide your credit card number when making a payment to the third party, and if that third party doesn’t provide some sort of gateway payment service like PayPal or Afterpay or Zip Co, then you…
