Australians are being hit with more coronavirus scams, Telstra says it saved 500 from SMS theft
Scammers rushing to exploit Australians working from home, who are fearful about their health, has prompted a leading company to ‘fast-track’ technology designed to block cyber attacks.
National
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Almost 500 Australians who fell for a coronavirus SMS scam in the past month were saved by artificially intelligent technology being trialled by Telstra, the company revealed on Wednesday, as it announced plans to ramp up efforts to stop COVID-19 cyber attacks.
The technology, which the company dubbed Cleaner Pipes, was designed to stop malicious websites, emails, scam calls and SMS messages, and Telstra chief executive Andy Penn told News Corp its launch had been “fast-tracked” to deal with a surge of new threats.
Mr Penn said the coronavirus pandemic had seen online criminals ramp up efforts to take advantage of thousands of potential victims who were no longer protected by corporate computer security, as they worked from home, and were fearful about their health.
“This has been on my mind for several weeks that we are in a more vulnerable environment with the consequences of COVID-19,” he said.
“Every time we close a scam site, another one pops up. We’re also blocking malicious SMSes in the order of 100,000 a day or more.”
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Mr Penn said the Cleaner Pipes initiative, which Telstra had been testing for 12 months, used artificial intelligence and a database of known malicious websites to block attacks on potential victims.
The technology had already blocked almost 500 Australians from being affected by the coronavirus-themed Cerberus Android banking Trojan over the past month, he said, and had prevented internet users from accessing 50 COVID-19 phishing websites.
Telstra reported that it had also blocked 1.46 million scam phone calls in the first three months of the year, and 23 million emails per day.
Telstra’s Cleaner Pipes initiative comes after cybersecurity firms report a massive surge in criminal attempts to exploit fears around the coronavirus online.
Forcepoint X-Labs found COVID-19 email scams rose by 358 per cent in March, and 150 malicious websites were identified coronavirus scams.