‘Quishing’, ‘vishing’ and AI scams – the new cybercriminal techniques duping Australians

‘Quishing’, ‘vishing’ and AI scams – the new cybercriminal techniques duping Australians

Cybercriminals are using fake QR codes or sophisticated artificial intelligence scams to trick Australians into giving up their private details or downloading dangerous files, the nation’s signals intelligence agency has warned, as fraudsters take advantage of the technology’s popularity.

The Australian Signals Directorate also sounded the alarm on the “shifting tactics” of state-sponsored hackers and cybercriminals, who they said are burrowing into computer systems of businesses and other organisations and then sitting quietly to avoid detection until they choose to strike.

“State-sponsored cyber operations increase as geostrategic tensions change, while cybercriminals and hacktivists also … remain an ongoing and persistent threat,” the ASD director general, Abigail Bradshaw, said.

ASD released its annual cyber threat report on Tuesday, drawing attention to trends in hacking, cybercrime and security issues. The agency received 87,000 reports of cybercrime over the 2023-24 financial year, responding to 1,100 incidents. The defence minister, Richard Marles, whose portfolio has responsibility over ASD, said the number of reports was similar to the previous year, but that the impact and costs of cybercrime were increasing, with the average cost of cybercrime for small businesses rising to nearly $50,000 for each report, and to $30,700 for individual reports.

“This is our fastest-growing threat and we need to use all the tools available to government and business to confront it,” said the cybersecurity minister, Tony Burke...