Australian cybercrime portal exploited by scammers

Hackers have harnessed Australia's cyber incident disclosure platform ReportCyber to compromise cryptocurrency wallets as part of a new scam campaign, Cybernews reports.

Attacks commenced with fake data breach warnings from threat actors masquerading as police officers, who also provided a purported official reference number of the incident on ReportCyber, according to the Australian Federal Police. Targets were later contacted by a fake cryptocurrency asset platform representative, who seeks to lure them into delivering their crypto funds to a "Cold Storage" account.

"These cybercriminals step through a process to verify the target's personal information which may match common expectations. What's more, because they move quickly from making the report to calling the target, they can create a sense of urgency," said AFP Detective Superintendent Marie Andersson. Such a development comes as the U.S. has bolstered its efforts to crack down on cyber scams with the creation of the Scam Center Strike Force.