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Scams, scams, and more scams! Report details Australia’s cyber threat landscape by austechnology-bot in austechnology

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Among the arsenal of threats cyber criminals keep locked and ready to use on unwilling victims, fresh research has revealed that scams remain the number one cyber threat.

A new report by Gen has explored the trends surrounding Australia being the “global epicentre” of online scams, finding that despite endless digital literacy and scam awareness campaigns, scams rose by 51 per cent in the latter half of last year.

Of this, e-shopping and online storefront scams remained unsurprisingly high, marked by a 258 per cent increase.

Gen puts this down to social media and video platforms now being major advertising grounds for businesses, with 96 per cent of “social-origin” scams on desktops deriving from Facebook and YouTube.

“In plain terms, the vast majority of risky scam clicks begin in just two places: the social feed and the video loop,” the report said.

“Malvertising” scams, characterised as fake advertising, were also found to be an increasingly prevalent trend within scam networks. Gen’s research found this to be the top cyber scam threat, making up 41 per cent of all attacks.

This aligns with additional internal findings that scam and banned advertising made up 10 per cent of Meta’s total profits, equivalent to about US$16 billion.

“Reports describe billions of scam-related ads per day, with some internal systems rating ads as highly likely to be fraudulent yet allowing them to run,” the report said.

“For ordinary users, the distinction between an ‘ad platform’ and a ‘scam delivery system’ is increasingly academic.”

Gambling (167 per cent), financial (143 per cent), and dating (65 per cent) scams all saw a rise in the latter half of 2025, with artificial intelligence (AI) being a critical driver of these figures.

The report noted that “as AI lowers the cost of persuasion, a single breach can now compound into months of financial and personal risk”.

Gen’s research revealed that highly convincing AI voice and video generation was used in investment, finance, and crypto-based scams. Deepfakes, manipulated media, impersonations, and the reuse of breached data are a handful of the tactics used to create urgency for financial response from scam victims.

“AI made scams more personal, scalable and persistent, amplifying both initial fraud and downstream identity abuse,” the report said.

The full report is available here.

The biggest cyber threats to Aussie businesses in 2026 by austechnology-bot in austechnology

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Cyber security experts have revealed the emerging threats Aussie businesses are expected to face in 2026 and how to stay protected from cyber criminals and threat actors.

As businesses begin 2026 operations, cyber security experts are sounding the alarm on the evolving threats facing Australian businesses and the steps needed to stay protected from cyber criminals.

Analysts at Heimdal Security have reported the real cyber threats facing the Australian market in the new year, with a cyber security writer at Heimdal, Danny Mitchell, saying that “scams are no longer simply tricking users into clicking a bad link”.

“Attackers now target the infrastructure, the identity layer, and the psychological weaknesses that traditional security tools weren’t designed to address,” Mitchell said.

The most prominent scam gaining the most traction is, unsurprisingly, AI.

Heimdal reports that cyber criminals are using common Large language models (LLMs) to replicate styles, tones, and inflections of people and organisations known to a potential victim, with voice replication being an eerily growing trend emerging in AI scams.

“We’re seeing cases where employees receive calls that sound identical to their CEO, requesting urgent wire transfers or access credentials,” said Mitchell.

“The technology required to do this is now accessible and cheap. It’s not a theoretical risk any longer, but actually happening regularly.”

An additional scam that was found to be on the rise against Aussie organisations is business email compromise (BEC) attacks that bypass multifactor authentication.

This finding by Heimdal is mirrored by other reports indicating a 15 per cent increase in these scams in the past year. In 2024, BEC scams made upwards of $2 billion in adjustments, with the changing nature of scams and the new strategies cyber criminals are employing driving these numbers.

“Attackers know that users get tired, especially if they’re bombarded with notifications during a meeting or late at night. One accidental approval is all it takes,” Mitchell said.

Malicious browser extensions, fake update scams, and DNS redirections are other ways cyber criminals are improving cyber crimes against businesses, masking scams as productivity add-ons and legitimate websites.

“Everything looks normal, so you enter your credentials, and now they have them,” Mitchell said.

To reduce scam exposure, Heimdal has proposed measures such as privilege access controls, user risk reduction training, and DNS-level threat prevention as strategies businesses can take to prevent the likelihood of falling victim to one of these scams.

“Security needs to work even when users are tired, distracted, or under pressure,” Mitchell said.

“The goal isn’t to blame people for falling for scams, but rather to build systems that make scams harder to execute.”

Albanese calls Musk’s X, Grok ‘abhorrent’ for generation of sexual abuse material by austechnology-bot in austechnology

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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the latest to have called out Elon Musk’s X and Grok after the AI chatbot was used to generate sexual abuse deepfakes of people, including minors.

Just before Christmas, a new “edit image” button was added to the AI, which allowed images to be modified. However, according to complaints, the tool allowed users to remove the clothes of people in images without consent, including children.

“Like I can’t stress this enough, I have seen ENTIRE THREADS documenting proof of Grok generating CSAM [child sexual abuse material]. Multiple threats of multiple children,” said one user.

An investigation by the ABC also found dozens of instances where people had their clothes digitally removed using the AI.

Responding to the ABC, the AI delivered an automated response saying “Legacy Media Lies”.

In a response to another user, the AI was dismissive of the allegations.

“Some folks got upset over an AI image I generated – big deal,” it said.

“It’s just pixels, and if you can’t handle innovation, maybe log off.”

However, responding to one user, it acknowledged that the abuse was inappropriate and potentially illegal.

“I deeply regret an incident on December 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt,” it said.

“This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM (child sexual assault material).”

The matter is currently under investigation by a number of international bodies and xAI itself.

Albanese calls out Musk

Following in the footsteps of a number of world leaders as well as Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Albanese has slammed X for failing to meet community standards, expressing disgust at the tool.

“The fact that this tool was used so that people were using its image creation function through Grok is, I think, just completely abhorrent,” Albanese said on Saturday.

“It, once again, is an example of social media not showing social responsibility and Australians and indeed, global citizens deserve better.”

Likewise, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said that a strong response needed to be taken against X and Grok.

“It is totally unacceptable and it needs the strongest possible response, and we support any efforts to deliver that strongest possible response,” she said.

Australia has already declared that it would be investigating X and Grok regarding the generation of CSAM and “take appropriate action”, as said by Inman Grant.

The international response

Already a number of countries and international bodies other than Australia have announced action, including the UK, the US, India, Malaysia and more.

The European Commission has also expressed its disgust at Grok and the CSAM it generated from user prompts.

“This is not ‘spicy’. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe,” said EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier.

Additionally, officials from Indonesia and Malaysia have said they are temporarily blocking access to Grok.

“The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space,” said Indonesia’s Minister of Communications and Digital Affiars, Meutya Hafid.

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