When Australians think about online scams, we often picture a lone criminal behind a computer sending fraudulent emails or messages and hoping someone will fall for it. The reality can be very different. Across parts of South-East Asia, organised criminal networks have developed large-scale scam centres — facilities that contain hundreds or even thousands of people who systematically target victims around the world. Their product, is fraud.

Once upon a time, scam emails were easy to spot — clumsy spelling, strange stories about a foreign prince, and promises of easy money. Those days are gone. Today’s smart scam emails look sharper, sound more believable, and use new tricks (including artificial intelligence) to fool even the savviest of us. Here’s how some of the latest email scams work — and what you can do to protect yourself.

Many of you may have seen reports that Qantas recently had a data breach, confirmed by the airline itself, in which personal data for around six million customers was exposed when a third-party contact-centre system was accessed by cyber criminals. That kind of incident may sound like something for the big boys, but it has real-life consequences for all of us — particularly when it comes to scams via text messages (SMS) and email. Here’s what it means and what you can do