Australians are being warned to rethink what they share online, with scammers now using artificial intelligence to crack passwords and steal personal information faster than ever before.
The Department of Home Affairs has found that 64 per cent of Australians have personal information publicly available on social media, including birthdays, family members’ names, emails and even residential suburbs.
Experts warn those details are like gold for scammers, particularly as 30 per cent of Australians use personal information in their passwords.
Cybercriminals are now using AI to guess logins based on what they can find out about victims online, with terrifying accuracy.
“AI has certainly changed the game,” said Daniel Garcia, Vice President of Kaseya APAC. “A lot of Australians reuse their passwords for multiple services. So getting access to one password can sometimes lead to access to multiple different accounts or multiple services.”
Experts say the best defence is using long, unique passphrases, enabling multi-factor authentication and avoiding oversharing online.
Be the first to know: Add 7NEWS as your preferred news source on Google.
