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Today’s cyber threats ride on real virus threats. Emotet, a malware gang notorious for taking advantage of trending current events is exploiting the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic by scaring potential victims into opening malicious attachments, camouflaged as official notifications from public health centers and disability welfare service providers. This tactic has already been observed in Japan, where the gang is actively distributing malware payloads via emails that warn targets of coronavirus infection reports in various cities. Using stolen emails from previously compromised accounts as templates, this campaign leverages footers containing the addresses of legitimate institutions for added authenticity, capitalizing on the coronavirus’s wide impact and the fear of infection surrounding it. The potential ramifications of receiving malware through such malicious emails are grave: as seen in 2017’s WannaCry attack, ransomware cost the UK’s National Health Service £20 mil...

According to Australian Government’s Cyber Security Review, cybercrime is costing the Australian economy around $1 billion annually in direct costs alone.  Some analysts say that data breaches could cost Australian businesses about $8 trillion over the next five years, largely because of higher levels of connectivity without a proportionate level of investment in security. The ATO or Australian Taxation Office works with the Attorney-General’s Department, the Department of Human Services, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC),  the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) as well as other government regulatory agencies & departments for combating the growing threat of identity theft as well as cybercrime. A few months back, the government implemented the NDBs or Notifiable Data Breach Scheme, administered by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. This scheme applies to all agencies & organizations respon...