Interview: Australians increasingly falling victim to online hacking scams, says expert

Australians are increasingly falling for the "sophisticated" methods of online criminals, according to a leading academic expert in computer security and hacking.

In releasing its Cybersecurity Insights Report late last month, global cybersecurity firm Norton found that almost 4 million Australians had their online personal information compromised during 2015, costing the Australian economy 860 million U.S. dollars.

Melbourne University lecturer Suelette Dreyfus, an Australian-American researcher in computer security and hacking, weighed in on the alarming figures on Monday, revealing some of the tactics cyber criminals used to crack into victim's electronic devices.

Dreyfus pointed at the rise of one particular type of malware, known as ransomware, which criminals use to lock an individual's personal information while demanding a ransom fee. Ransomware accounts for one-sixth of online extortion crime involving Australians.

"Australia is the No. 1 target for ransomware in the Asia-Pacific region and No. 8 globally. That's the real growth area," Dreyfus told Xinhua.

"One of the other things the (Norton) report doesn't mention, which illustrates the evolving sophistication of cyber criminals, is the reports in the underground of certain malware (ransomware) that has the capability of co-opting your phone camera," she said.

"It seems these criminals take photos of victim and demand ransom to prevent those photos from being released," said the expert. "That's not about locking up information, that's about gathering unauthorized information for extortion."

The report surveyed 17,125 mobile device users from 17 nations over the course of last year and, based on those figures, an estimated 594 million people globally had fallen victim to online criminals.

Out of those 594 million online users, 348 million cases were specifically related to identity theft.

According to Norton, online crime takes 107.5 billion U.S. dollars out of the global economy each year.

Dreyfus, who works at Melbourne University's Department of Computing and Information Systems, said users needed to get serious with their online security arrangements as online extortion methods constantly became more sophisticated.

"The first line of defense is to always make sure your software is updated and has the latest security patches," she told Xinhua.

"Those pesky (update) messages that come across your screen ... which make a lot of people think 'I'm in the middle of doing something, go away'."

The right answer was click to "yes" and check for updates regularly everyday, according to the expert.

"Not having your system patched is the easiest way to get hacked," she said.

Dreyfus also recommended using "secure and unique" passwords for every online account, avoiding personalized - and obvious - passkeys like "your husband's name, your dog's name or your child's birthday."

She suggested online users employ multi-factor authentication (MFA), which asks for several pieces of evidence before being allowed to log in, as another means of keeping cyber criminals at bay.

"It's a great way to give yourself an extra layer of security," Dreyfus said. Enditem