How to Recognize and Avoid Cybercrime in Australia

This article discusses the importance of recognizing and avoiding cybercrime in Australia. It explores the efforts of the Australian government and organizations to track and prevent cybercrimes. The article provides tips and strategies for individuals and organizations to protect themselves from cyber-attacks. It also highlights the role of technology and the need for cybersecurity awareness and education.

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How to Recognize and Avoid Cybercrime in Australia
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Cybersecurity refers to the practice of offering protection to the computer, programs, mobile
devices, servers, electronic systems and even networks from unauthorized and malicious digital
attacks. For any successful cybersecurity, there have to be multiple protection layers that cut
across programs, data, computers or networks that one wants to keep safe from any malicious
access. Cybersecurity is threatened by cyber-attack that involves the gathering of information to
motivate political interests (Abomhara 2015, p. 70), cybercrimes that mainly target systems for
monetary gain or just for disruption and cyber terror which mainly causes panic through
undermining of electronic systems. That is why the Australian government as putting in place
different organizations for identifying these cybercrimes and mitigate or avoid them in the best
ways possible so as to ensure the social and economic lives of people accessing the internet is
comfortable and safe in this digital age.
The Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN) is putting in a lot of effort to
track down any unauthorized access of information by identifying the scope and prevalence of
these cybercrimes and then strategizing on the most appropriate ways of stopping these crimes
(Cross, Richards & Smith 2016, p. 11). The Australian Federal Police (AFP) reported that
cybercriminals were on the rise and that they were classified as criminally motivated. The
Australian government has come up with ways of tracking and recognizing these cybercrimes
and ways of avoiding such crimes from happening.
Cybercrimes are recognized by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) which is spending
day and night just to ensure that Australia remains the safest country for an online connection
(Broadhurst 2017, p. 228). They are able to recognize urgent payroll requests which are a factor
of cybercrime. It is recognized that the cybercriminals try to send email requests that are fake.

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They usually want a change of somebody’s bank account details for the purpose of stealing from
them. Different organizations in Australia have received such fraud email and reported to the
Australian Cyber Security Centre (Minnaar 2014, p. 138).
Through the PayPal email requests that are fake, the security Centre of Australia is able to
recognize cybercrime. The cybercriminals advice the Australians falsely telling them that PayPal
accounts have violated the rules of PayPal. The recipient of that particular malicious email is
then lured into sharing his/ her personal details which are the key to theft by the cybercriminals.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre is able to recognize these and deal with it in a proper way.
For any defense that is effective against cybercrimes, the people, the processes and the
technology must all be complementary to one another in an organization. The people must be
well conversant and adhere to essential principles of data security. One needs to be aware of
email attachments, to choose strong passwords that cannot be easily bypassed and also to always
do data backup. Australian organizations need a framework of ways of dealing with attempted
cyber-attacks or successful ones. A good framework helps an individual or organization to detect
and identify cyber-attack, respond to cyber threats, system protection and also get back on their
toes from a successful cyber-attack (Choo 2014, p. 89). Technology plays an important role in
cybersecurity since it provides organizations with security tools for protection against cyber-
attacks. Three technology entities that must be protected are endpoint devices, networks, and
cloud. They are protected by Domain Name System filtering, firewalls, antivirus, email security
solution and protection of malware.
To avoid cybercrime in Australia, the government has raised awareness of cybercrimes to the
people. Since Australia has highly adopted technology in its economic prosperity, it will
continually be the best and attractive target of cybercriminals in these advancing digital age

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(Mbanaso & Dandaura 2015, p. 20). The individuals are offered awareness and public cyber
education and skills since they are at high risk of being cybercrime victims. People are taught
techniques that are usually used by cybercriminals to attack and are encouraged to understand the
risks found online. Individuals are equipped with the awareness of internet safety benefits and
good practices of cybersecurity. The Australian government has gone an extra mile in creating a
program called Cyber Safety Pasifika (CSP) for providing education on cyber safety. Through
this program, people are given materials for awareness of cybercrimes.
The Australian government is also assisting the countries of Indo-Pacific to strengthen the
legislation of their cybercrime. Frameworks of domestic legislation that are stronger are used to
respond to cybercrimes. There is also a great cybercrimes legislation harmonization among these
countries. To ensure that these cybercriminals do not escape justice, Australia harmonizes the
legal frameworks for the same acts to be criminalized in all the jurisdictions. By so doing, the
cost of work for cybercriminals raise hence an essential way to prevent cybercrimes from
thriving safely in Australia.
Australia, being a part of the Budapest Convention is able to collaborate with other countries for
the sole purpose of hunting down these cybercriminals through the harmonized legal frameworks
and law enforcement frameworks. These countries work together on investigations of trans-
border and prosecute cybercriminals in accordance with the Budapest Convention legislation
framework. Australia is involved in the process of developing an additional protocol to the
Budapest Convention to facilitate trans-border information access. This protocol provides
electronic information access and also promote cooperation among jurisdictions so that any
cybercrime detected and recognized among these conventional countries does not evade justice
(Clough 2014, p. 698).

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Australia is working hand in hand with the Pacific Islands Law Officers' Network (PILON) to
help strengthen cybercrime legislation in the neighboring region. PILON addresses legal issues
that are common to the Pacific countries. Australia also ensures that there is a consistent
framework responsible for electronic evidence use. There is the expansion of the Cyber Safety
Pasifika (CSP) for the development of policy activities. This program helps in the recognition
and also provides ways of avoiding cybercrimes from happening in Australia and regional
neighbors (Chang, Zhong & Grabosky 2018, p. 110).
The Australian government encourages cybercrime information sharing internationally and also
enhancing dialogue that is diplomatic between collaborating partners so as to collectively fight
cybercrimes and also making sure that cybercriminals lack opportunities of exploiting
cyberspace for malicious cyber-attacks. Cybercrime is usually made as an agenda and point of
discussion in the diplomatic engagements of the Australian government.
Administrative privileges for computer applications and operating systems have been restricted
in Australia. This has been made possible based on the specific duties of users. Those accounts
that are known to have access which is exceptionally mighty should not be able to go online or
be able to read an email sent to them. Removal of unnecessary access privileges should be done
and occasionally review the access of every user to the system. By so doing, the Australian
government is able to easily recognize and mitigate or avoid any cyber-attack that might be
attempted on their systems.
Authentication of multi-factor is also practiced by Australia. This is mainly to provide
authentication of the highest privilege assurance that is strong and accessed remotely by users.
Here, the user’s identification is essential for any access to the system. This method is very good
since there is no direct access to any system or programs in an organization. One has to provide

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something well known to them like a password, they have to provide say a smartcard if they have
or just a one-time physical PIN or may be needed to provide something they are like face,
fingerprint or even their voice (Khan et al. 2015, p. 464). All these are necessary for any access
that is remote since just the password and username alone cannot assure one that they are
actually whom they claim to be on the other end of access.
Daily backup of data and settings of its configurations has been employed in organizations to
keep track of data and to be able to recognize any attempted or successful cyber-attack on a daily
basis and also to avoid loss of data in case of a system crash. Backups are retained for
approximately three months and then they store elsewhere disconnected from your system so as
to avoid malicious access from cybercriminals who might want to get information from your
organization for their own benefit. Backup integrity also needs to be validated periodically and
testing of the procedure for restoration.
There is an application of office macros that gives users features of programming for performing
tasks faster than manually. It is essential to do a configuration of Microsoft Office so as to be
able to block any untrusted macros from being executed by cybercriminals. It is known that
cybercriminals usually populate numerous documents that depict normal presentation yet they
are not. When these documents are opened, they execute and run code within the macros, as a
result, it gives the attacker control over your system. This problem is avoided by only allowing
macros to run from a trusted location document and macros to be signed by a certificate that is
trusted.
Every organization and individual is advised to patch and also upgrade their operating systems to
possibly the latest versions. To be able to make sure that security patches are maintained,
everyone is supposed to use an operating system version that is supported. Applications should

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also be patched or updated periodically. Unpatched applications are usually vulnerable to cyber-
attacker to easily take control of your system (Bou-Harb,Debbabi & Assi 2014, p. 1511).
The Australian government through the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) has
introduced a program for cyber resilience and other responsive acts for those organizations that
have a role for cybersecurity. To avoid cybercriminals from accessing systems and programs in
an unauthorized manner, every individuals and organization in Australia are advised to plug into
Australian Cyber Security Centre for cyber resilience. The Australian Cyber Security Centre
program is entering its next phase via the Joint Cyber Security Centers. This partnership is
making it possible for law-enforcement and collaboration of workspace, to bring about the
hardening of network and also to enable sharing of information in a secure and authorized
manner (Kott & Linkov 2019). This will make it difficult for the cybercriminals to easily gain
access to any system in any organization.
Every individual is advised to harden the applications of users and strictly take control of each
and every software which have the capability of performing vulnerable activities that are not
authorized by a particular individual or organization. The default configuration of browsers to
block flash should be done. Hardening guides should, however, be provided on pages of
publication to fully take control of one's systems and programs.
Australia is enhancing dialogue that is diplomatic and international cybercrime information
sharing. Australia has joined other partners internationally to fight cybercrime (Feakin, Nevill &
Hawkins 2017). It believes that working together for this common course will make sure that
cyber-attacker have very little or no access to cyberspace and conduct their malicious activities.
Most diplomatic engagement of Australia prioritizes cybercrime discussions so as to always
enlighten people on the cybersecurity and upcoming ways of avoiding cyber-attacks. This has

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made Australia to develop a stronger threat for cybercriminals and the best way of mitigating
cybercrimes in the country.
There is also law enforcement and the capacity building of prosecution on cybercrimes in the
Indo-Pacific region. Australia is assured of safety from cybercrimes when countries of its region
are capable of responding to cyber-attacks (Fourie et al. 2014). The Cyber Safety Pasifika (CSP)
program has collaborated with the law enforcement agencies so as to address cybercrimes. This
program has also partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Legal Attaché
Office in Canberra to conduct a cyber investigation and to enhance cybercrimes investigations
skills among the Police officers of the Pacific Regions.
It is clear that cybercrimes have increased over the years in Australia and this is mainly fueled by
the increasing economic activities and social activities over the internet in this digital age. It is
clear that the Australian government has put a lot of effort into making sure that all these
cybercrimes are investigated, recognized and mitigated and even prevented for good. It has not
been easy since the cybercriminals are also working day and night just to be able to gain
unauthorized access to system and programs for malicious activities. To counter all these
malicious acts, the Australian government has put in place the Australian Cyber Security Centre
that has a number of staffs to collectively work together to ensure secure cyberspace for the
benefit of all the Australians.

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