Fraudsters are weaponizing Australia’s national cybercrime reporting system to impersonate federal police and compromise cryptocurrency wallets, authorities warned on Wednesday.
The Australian Federal Police says false reports are being made through ReportCyber, the government’s official platform for reporting cybercrime, using stolen personal information to impersonate AFP officers and call victims to steal their digital assets. statement.
AFP Superintendent Marie Anderson said in a statement that the scam is convincing because the criminals “verify personal information in a manner consistent with public expectations” and act quickly “to create a sense of urgency.”
According to the AFP-led Joint Police Cybercrime Coordination Centre, cybercriminals are fraudulently obtaining personal information such as email addresses and phone numbers to submit fraud reports through the platform.
The system allows for third-party reporting on behalf of victims, a feature that scammers use to establish credibility, AFP said.
decryption We have contacted AFP for further comment.
fraud techniques
In a statement, police detailed how these particular scams were carried out.
According to AFP news agency, one of the victims received a call from someone posing as an AFP employee who told him his name had appeared in a cryptocurrency-related data breach and provided him with a ReportCyber reference number that appeared to be official.
When the victims saw the reconciliation report submitted by the scammers, they felt that the scheme was reliable. A second caller posing as a crypto platform pushed the transfer to a fake cold storage wallet using the same reference number.
The victim became suspicious and hung up before sending the money. Police say in similar cases fake phone numbers are used to imitate real AFP lines.
Mr Anderson urged caution, saying Australians should “look for warning signs and protect yourself”.
The authorities stressed that genuine officials will never request access to cryptocurrency accounts, seed phrases, or banking information.
Anyone contacted about filing a ReportCyber that they did not create should hang up and call 1300 CYBER1, Anderson said, noting how important legitimate reports are for police to “track down criminals and prevent others from being targeted.”
Crackdown on cryptocurrency fraud
The warning comes as Australian regulators ramp up their campaign against crypto-related scams on a number of fronts.
Last month, Home Secretary Tony Burke announced the pending legislation. Regulate virtual currency ATMslabeled these machines as “high-risk products” linked to money laundering and child exploitation.
In August, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission reported: Approximately 3,015 cryptocurrency fraud websites removed A total of 14,000 fraudulent sites were partially removed in two years.
Meanwhile, Brendan Thomas, CEO of financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC, warned that digital currencies are dangerous. top threats In July, it said the new anti-money laundering regulations were “the most ambitious overhaul of Australia’s anti-money laundering laws in a generation”.
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