Australia’s big four banks under constant cyber attacks

One of Australia’s top banking executives has revealed the big four are under constant attack from cyber criminals.

Australia’s big four banks are under constant cyberattack from transnational organised criminal groups by the “loser in the basement” trying to steal money and information, an expert has revealed.

National Australia Bank executive for group investigations Chris Sheehan told the ABC every bank in Australia was being attacked all the time.

“Every bank,” he said.

“If it’s not us being attacked, then our customers are being attacked, in an effort to steal their information and their money.”

National Australia Bank executive for group investigations Chris Sheehan told the ABC that every bank in Australia was being attacked by cyber criminals all the time. Picture: NCA Newswire

Mr Sheehan said the entire community was at risk and there was no typical demographic who were more prevalent than others.

He described it as “warfare” which is engaged on a “day-by-day” basis.

Mr Sheehan said the attacks came from everywhere including “Larry the loser” in a basement at home tapping away at a laptop trying to steal money from people or hack into a system.

According to the banking executive, about 90 per cent of scams that hit Australian victims were from sophisticated, ruthless and resilient transnational organised crime gangs.

“And then at the top end of the scale, we’re dealing with nation-state actors, malicious nation-state actors,” he said.

“So, it’s asymmetrical warfare.”

Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt told the ABC that most people were not aware how prevalent online attacks were, which was partly because people did not realise these attacks originated from all over the world.

Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt told the ABC that people perceived cybercrime to be less risk than robbing a bank, or when they could not be extradited to other countries where crimes were committed.

“All sorts of different demographics are mounting them,” he said.

“There are attacks online, attacks against individuals, attacks against corporations.

“It really is prevalent.”

He said people perceived cybercrime be low risk compared to robbing a bank, and that people in other countries saw less risk if it was unlikely they would be extradited.

“The reward’s totally different as well,” he said.

“It’s not about grabbing cash out of a till, it’s about potentially grabbing hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars in one go.”

The National Anti-Scam Centre has now joined forces with the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange intelligence loop to work alongside banks, telcos and digital platforms and fight cybercrime.

Together the organisations are enhancing their ability to disrupt scammers by detecting and blocking scam phone numbers, bank accounts, URLs and websites.

The National Anti-Scam Centre has joined forces with the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange intelligence loop to work alongside banks, telcos and digital platforms to fight cybercrime.

Australian Banking Association chief executive officer Anna Bligh said better and faster intelligence sharing across the entire scams chain would be critical to stopping scammers in their tracks.

“This will be a vital weapon in the war against scams. Its expansion will make it easier to shutdown scammers and stop them from harming more Australians,” she said.

“Banks play a critical role in the operation of this intelligence tool whether it be acting on information it receives from another participant or passing on critical intelligence that can be used to dismantle a scam.

“In practice it means when a bank customer reports it’s received a scam via SMS, the bank can share that information with the relevant telecommunication provider who can take action to block the phone number.

“This escalation in intelligence sharing builds on our industry’s Scam-Safe Accord which is a set of world-leading protections by banks to shield customers from scammers.”

Originally published as Australia’s big four banks under constant cyber attacks