Scam surge: Black Friday sales and Optus outage spark new warnings

Scammers are sharpening their tools to target deal-hungry shoppers in a key sales period. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Shoppers are being warned about a looming avalanche of scams to strike next week’s Black Friday sales, as criminals target major events including the recent Optus outage.

New research commissioned by ING Australia suggests 1.4 million shoppers have previously been scammed over the popular sales period, and cybersecurity specialists say AI is adding an extra level of sophistication to scams.

Scammers are jumping on news events almost immediately, with malicious “Optus compensation” email and SMS messages appearing within a day of last week’s national network outage.

ING Australia head of daily banking Matt Bowen said scammers saw the Black Friday sales period as an opportunity to capitalise on the online shopping spike, and their attacks could include:

• Fake websites that requested unusual payment methods.

• Scammers posing as genuine sellers on reputable online marketplace websites.

• Impersonation scams around parcel deliveries.

“Think before you click,” he said.

“Always verify if a message or link is real by checking on the company’s official website or trusted phone number.

Don’t get caught by parcel-related phishing scams.

“And if you’ve ordered something online but you aren’t sure if the text about a parcel delivery is legitimate, check your order email for updates or contact the seller.”

ING’s research found many Black Friday shoppers were taking steps to protect themselves including reading online reviews before buying, not clicking on suspicious links, and buying only from reputable websites.

But only 12 per cent were researching common scams, and half said they would click a deal link sent by email or phone without verifying it first.

RMIT University associate professor of finance Angel Zong said the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were “a money-making opportunity for scammers”.

Dr Zong said shoppers should be extremely cautious about any marketing emails and texts, especially those claiming unbelievable discounts.

“To avoid falling victim to a sales scam, it’s important to verify the authenticity of online deals, avoid clicking suspicious links, and always double-check the website’s link,” she said.

“Stick to reputable retailers and always check for secure payment options.”

Cybersecurity company KnowBe4’s security awareness advocate, Jacqueline Jayne, said Australians should expect to see an increase in emails, notifications and pop-up ads offering amazing deals and asking them to click on or open something to access them.

“Unfortunately, many of these will be fake and scams so pay close attention,” she said.

“Using smishing – malicious SMS – and phishing – malicious email – to get consumers to log in to fake websites looking like Amazon.com or other major retailers, the criminals then steal the username and password to log in to the account and make purchases with previously linked credit cards in the account.

Ms Jayne said situational scams such as Optus struck when emotions were running high.

KnowBe4’s Jacqueline Jayne says AI is a big worry with scams. Picture: Sarah Reed

She said KnowBe4 was already seeing Optus compensation smishing and phishing scams that pretended to be Optus, apologised for the network outage and directed people to apply for compensation via a fake link.

“We will see more Optus-related scams such as this over the coming weeks and months that will be iterations of the current one and new scams.

“Please check on the Optus website or on the ScamWatch website for the latest scams. “

The introduction and rapid rise of generative AI added a level of sophistication and speed to market that could not be overlooked and was “to be honest, terrifying”, Ms Jayne said.

AI voice scams and “sextortion” scams were among the new wave of attacks, she said.

“Everyone must take a moment to accept that scammers and cybercriminals are constantly creating new and sophisticated scams related to news events and situations,” Ms Jayne said.