Crypto payments involved in almost half of Australian online scams

Eines der merkwürdigsten Tiere der Welt, aber ziemlich wehrhaft, wenn man ihm dumm kommt: ein Känguru in Australien. Bild von Dan Armbrust via flickr.com. Lizenz: Creative Commons

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) started actively fighting online fraud over a year ago. Now, they have released an initial report that is optimistic: It’s possible!

On July 1, 2023, various Australian authorities united under the leadership of ASIC to vigorously combat online fraud. The government invested 86.5 million Australian dollars (AUD) in this effort, a sum so well-utilized that it might be suspected of being a scam itself if it were on the open market.

ASIC has integrated information from various departments and agencies to obtain a holistic view of online scams in Australia.

Additionally, they have developed capabilities and procedures to swiftly shut down fraudulent websites. They refer suspected cases to a third party specializing in the detection and prevention of cybercrime. If the suspicion is confirmed, the „takedown“ process begins, involving other external parties in the responsibility of shutting down the fraudulent websites.

Already, an interim report released in April gave cause for optimism. Although the number of reported cases in 2023 rose to 601,000, significantly higher than the 507,000 cases reported the previous year, losses decreased by a staggering 13% to 2.74 billion dollars. ASIC attributes this to their own decisive actions, particularly the rapid shutdown of websites. If true, the taxpayer’s investment has paid off three- or four-fold in just one year!

Overall, ASIC has taken 7,300 websites offline in the past year, they recently reported, which averages to about 20 per day.

The majority of these were in the category of investment fraud, accounting for 5,530 sites. ASIC warns that this type of fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Deepfakes appear to be one of the first killer apps of generative AI: scammers create videos of celebrities promoting fake investments. This is similar to scams seen on shows like „Shark Tank.“

Following investment fraud are „phishing links“ with 1,065 websites and crypto scams with „only“ 615 websites. However, this presents a somewhat misleading picture. Cryptocurrencies are often embedded in investment scams, such as Quantum AI. ASIC describes this as a platform that uses deepfakes featuring celebrities like Elon Musk to promote unrealistically high returns, claiming to trade on the crypto market using AI and quantum computing. It also accepts numerous cryptocurrencies for deposits.

Overall, half of all observed fraudulent payments were made in cryptocurrencies. Crypto is thus on its way to supplanting the AUD as the preferred currency for fraud in Australia.

Accordingly, ASIC is also addressing payment methods. Since mid-2023, under pressure from the authority, many banks have limited transactions to „high-risk exchanges,“ usually meaning P2P exchanges. This has at least made the playing field for fraudsters less hospitable and Australia somewhat less attractive.

The Australian offensive highlights the extent of online fraud, but it also shows that decisive action can help significantly reduce it.

For Germany and the EU, such a consolidation is lacking. It is difficult to estimate the volume of fraud here. Estimates suggest that retailers alone lose more than 23 billion euros annually to fraud and cyberattacks. The digital industry association BitKom estimates damages from cyberattacks at 148 billion euros.

Information on fraud damages alone is hard to come by. Yet, according to a statistic, asset and fraud offenses are by far the most common internet crimes – and Australia shows that it is possible to fight fraud if there is a will.