Cybersafety Part 8: Cybersecurity – “How do you Protect Yourself Against Online Scammers?”

When engaging in social networking, people post pictures, make catch-up plans with friends, and generally chat about what has been going on in life.

But, sadly, particularly now in this hyper-online connected world, social networking also offers a plethora of unscrupulous individuals and organised cyber crime syndicates an irresistible opportunity to gain access to people (e.g. via Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, online gaming or via email) in an attempt to exploit and defraud them of their money.

Scamming is where one person, a cyber thief, pretends to have a legitimate financial need and exploits the generosity and naivety of another in order to obtain that person’s bank account or credit card details, with the ultimate aim of ripping money off that person.

How effective is home antivirus at stopping electronic scum and villainy such as viruses, worms and trojans from infecting and spying on the home computer and passing personal information back to cyber criminals? The truth is that there is no antivirus software or firewall in the world that can secure personal bank account details on a computer if these details are unknowingly and freely offered to phishing scammers! How? Read on…

Ever gone fishing? Throw out a line and wait for a bite. Hopefully the hook does its job and, hey presto, you have caught a fish! On the Internet this is called ‘phishing’ – same sound, different spelling; one is legal and the other is not, at least in most developed nations. It is what cyber criminals do – they try to trick children (and adults) into freely handing over their parent’s or their own credit card details. No firewall needed here!

What is interesting about this type of scam is that it does not ask you for money; rather, it asks permission to put money into your bank account – to then strip the account empty before anyone realises. But don’t be fooled; if the person is a stranger, then the person is most likely not a ‘friend’, but a ‘fiend’. These scams usually originate from organised crime syndicates operating in countries such as Nigeria and Russia, where there are no laws forbidding such practices, meaning there is no way for a person to get his/her money back!

If you receive such an email, add the sender to the email ‘blocked senders list’, then delete the email.

There is no substitute for parental involvement in a child’s online activities. Parents/guardians should establish an ongoing conversation with their children about their various online experiences, providing guidance whenever necessary. Importantly, parents/guardians might consider going online themselves and joining a social networking site or getting involved with friends in a chat room. Parents/guardians should be familiar with the space their children are playing in. You would not leave your child alone in the park, would you?

To learn more about banking scams, go to https://www.esafety.gov.au/women/life-admin/banking. Complaints about general content on the Internet can be made to the new Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report.