Cybercrime case studies

What happened?

David is a working dad with three children: Daniel and Matilda (7) and Angie (14). Angie has just commenced her second year of high school. Angie begged David for a smartphone. David finally relents and gives Angie his old smartphone. As a condition for receiving the phone, Angie must share her passcode and must leave the phone to charge overnight in the kitchen.

Angie spends a lot of time on her phone. David will often ask Angie what she is doing on the phone. He tries to monitor her use and keeps track of the phone bill. David has to start working long nights on a special project for work. David is not able to monitor Angie’s phone use as closely. Soon, Angie begins to keep her phone in the room overnight.

As the months go by, David notices Angie’s behaviour changes. She becomes withdrawn and irritable. Her school work starts to suffer.

David receives a call from the school principal – the principal needs an urgent meeting with David. The principal tells David that a parent of one of Angie’s friends told the principal that Angie is in contact with a man online who sends Angie inappropriate messages. David talks to Angie and learns that she met this man on a messaging app and they message constantly.

How was David affected?

David is horrified and feels like he has failed Angie. He feels he has neglected his duty as a parent.

David is devastated that Angie did not tell him what was happening.

David feels powerless to keep his child safe. David starts to suffer from anxiety, affecting his work and relationships.

What happened?

Amara received and accepted a friend request from Ferenc, a Hungarian serviceman on peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan. Ferenc and Amara grew closer together. Ferenc shared pictures with her and told Amara he had lost his wife to cancer. This was similar to Amara’s own experience – her elderly husband died of cancer two years ago.

Ferenc said he was being posted to Cyprus but that his time in the military was nearly finished. Ferenc told Amara he wanted to set up a jewellery store when he retired.

Ferenc told Amara he was coming to see her but had some trouble with his bank card not working in Cyprus and could not get funds to pay for an export tax on his gemstones. Taking out a loan, Amara transferred Ferenc $15,000 to cover the tax bill. Shortly after, Ferenc told Amara that he had been detained by local authorities in Malaysia on the way to Australia. He needed $20,000 to pay his legal and court fees.

Amara contacted the Malaysian police – they had no knowledge of Ferenc. When Amara told Ferenc she could not send the additional money, he responded with very angry messages, and then ceased contact altogether.

How was Amara affected?

Amara was left confused and hurt. She feels betrayed and cheated. She knows in her head that this was a scam, but in her heart still feels that Ferenc might be out there and she has let him down.

Amara had to re-enter the workforce to service the loan she took. She is also at risk of having her identity stolen because she shared a lot of personal information with the scammer calling himself Ferenc.

What happened?

Jin and Bella run a family owned accounting firm that provides outsourced bookkeeping and accounts functions for small businesses across Victoria.

The business operates through an online platform—client companies log in through a website portal and can take care of several bookkeeping needs for their businesses, such as tracking their expenses, processing receipts and calculating deductions.

Jin and Bella’s business computers were infected with ransomware via a suspect email just before tax time. This ransomware locked down the business’ platform so that clients were unable use the portal. The cybercriminals demanded $100,000 in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, to restore the network. Jin and Bella refused to pay. The cybercriminals threatened to publish the private information of Jin and Bella’s clients. Jin and Bella did not know what to do. They did not have the money to pay the ransomware. Eventually, Jin and Bella contacted Victoria Police to report the crime.

The majority of Jin and Bella’s clients were unable to submit their tax returns on time. Clients were extremely dissatisfied with the service.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre advises against paying ransoms. Payment of the ransom may increase an individual or organisation’s vulnerability to future ransomware incidents. In addition, there is no guarantee that payment will undo the damage.

How were Jin, Bella and their clients affected?

The reputation of Jin and Bella’s business suffered and as a result, they lost clients. Jin and Bella experienced considerable stress and anxiety from the attack.

What happened?

Aisha is a teacher who unknowingly had malware called a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) downloaded onto her smart phone.

Using the RAT, a cybercriminal accessed her email and text messages, and forwarded some private, intimate pictures to colleagues and family members in her contacts.

The cybercriminal also posted these images, as well as some digitally altered “deepfakes”, to several adult websites. Some of these images were found by students at Aisha’s school.

Aisha did not make a report to Victoria Police, but tried to track down the websites where the images were posted to demand that they were taken down. She suspects that her ex-boyfriend – who has a history of control and emotionally abusive behaviour – was behind the attack, but she did not have any way to prove this.

How was Aisha affected?

Aisha has been devastated by these events— both privately and professionally.

Although her school ultimately understood that she was a victim, the damage to her reputation was irreversible. This, coupled with the anxiety that her students had seen these personal and deepfake images of her, led to her giving up her teaching position at the school. This was her primary source of income.