Scams target real estate sales via payment redirection

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australia's property sector is being increasingly targeted by scammers. The scams are commonly known as man in the middle scams where hackers impersonate businesses on email and then put in place payment redirections.

Transcript

00:00Number one, big transaction, it might be prudent not just to rely on email, so don't just rely

00:07on what you see in the PDF, on the email.

00:09You want to verify that in more than one way.

00:11So if you've got an email, also maybe call up and verify that they are the right bank

00:16details for that transfer to be made to.

00:18The other thing we say is a lot of the time these scams happen because hackers break into

00:23the inboxes of these organisations and then they manipulate the invoices.

00:28So for organisations, basic security controls like multi-factor authentication, that extra

00:34layer of protection beyond a password, it's going to be really important to preventing

00:38these.

00:39But finally, it comes back to the human.

00:40It's not just a technical problem, it's around having that vigilance that even, I mean sometimes

00:46we see these scammers, it's not just emails, they also might call up, impersonate someone.

00:51So it's about if someone asks you to do something unorthodox, change the bank account's details

00:56at the last minute, really step back, stop, check, verify through more than just one source.

01:03We've seen, for example, a task force set up around scams.

01:07We've seen the government putting more pressure, again as I said, on the big end of town here,

01:10who have more ability to see this happening at scale, to pick up the intelligence and

01:15then stop it, to stop it getting to the end user.

01:19But there are also more initiatives I'm sure the government can do.

01:23One thing we've seen from the Australian Tax Office, for example, is an e-invoice scheme.

01:27So rather than relying on paper-based or email or PDF invoices, you can use the ATO e-invoice

01:36scheme, which is a separate network, it's secured, less likely that hackers will break

01:41into that and insert themselves into the conversation.

01:44So there is more being done, but absolutely I think at this point, it's also about that

01:48attention being raised across everyday consumers that, unfortunately, this is big business

01:55for scammers and we're going to have to have that extra level of vigilance we just didn't

01:59have previously.

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