It started like any other afternoon. But what followed was one of the most convincing scam attempts I’ve ever encountered — and I say that as someone who knows what to look for. The caller was a male with a British accent, calm and professional. He introduced himself as being from the NAB fraud team. Straight away, he had my attention. Then came the hook.....

A newly compiled collection of 1.3 billion unique passwords and 2 billion unique email addresses has been discovered online. This data wasn’t stolen in a single “big breach” of a company or service. Instead, it’s an aggregate, compiled by the threat intelligence firm Synthient, which scoured both the open and dark web to collect credentials from hundreds of past data breaches, lists used for “credential-stuffing,” and logs from malware-infected devices.

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

Australia’s national carrier, Qantas, has become the latest target of cybercriminals, and experts warn that millions of customers could now be at risk of phishing and scam attacks. While Qantas has assured customers that passwords, credit-card details, and passports were not included in the compromised files, the leaked data does include names, phone numbers, emails, birthdates, and frequent-flyer numbers - more than enough to fuel an onslaught of phishing, identity-theft, a