The CROC team enjoyed two successful months in Tasmania over the summer 22/23 period, engaging with the community and sharing our cyber resilience messaging. We presented at libraries, markets and various community groups, including the University of the Third Age. We also visited our sponsor, Westpac, presenting to staff and clients at a number of their branches. Busy Times!

Early during our Tasmanian CROC schedule, IDCARE presented at the Burnie Library, sharing our cyber safety messages with staff and visitors. What was initially planned to be a single library presentation led to many more, including the Launceston, St Helens, Huonville, and Devonport libraries.
A participant in the Devonport library presentation shared her recent scam experience. Her PayPal account was hacked, and two brand-new iPhones were ordered and shipped to Western Australia. Despite seeing the transactions happening in her hacked account in real time, she could not stop the items from being dispatched to the criminals. Experiences like this reinforce the importance of using multi-factor authentication where available on all accounts.

There was also a discussion about data breach notifications and what they mean for individuals. A library staff member received a data breach notification advising her that her driver licence was exposed in a data breach. She had not taken any action since receiving the notification letter, admitting she was not aware of the potential risk of her identity credential details being used by criminals. This is not an uncommon reaction from individuals receiving data breach notifications, and we were able to share information about what the notification means and arm her with the tools and information needed to replace her compromised ID.

A full house of more than 100 University of the Third Age members packed the University of Tasmania's lecture hall to hear what they can do to limit the risk of cybercrime, scams and identity theft. The highly engaged audience consisted of many Optus and Medibank customers interested in hearing about our recommendations for each of these significant data breaches. One of our IDCARE analysts provided the audience with information about their options for credit bans, credit reports and fraud risks due to data breaches. Password management also featured as concerns were raised around how to create and remember the plethora of passwords required across multiple accounts. We discussed how a password manager can save you the headache of creating unique passwords across multiple accounts and remembering them all!

A bustling central Hobart city street hosts the weekly Farm Gate market with hundreds of shoppers looking for fresh and local produce. The convenors of the market allowed our community service stall to set up in the area generally restricted to food vendors, as they had been the victims of a recent attempted scam. It was great to chat with the fresh produce shoppers and provide advice on the free community services available, answer their questions, and even hear from several former clients of IDCARE.

The team were excited to be included in an evening customer presentation where IDCARE and Westpac joined forces at the Launceston branch. Learning more from the Westpac team, who detailed what they see nationally around scams, was extremely rewarding. This included some exciting discussions around fake Alpha tags in SMS scams and how they are now being sent by scammers who have mastered this technology. Also discussed was how scammers impersonate family members or businesses to create a sense of legitimacy and play on people's natural desire to help family members in trouble. It was an excellent reminder to not trust a message, link or caller just because they appear to be from a reputable organisation and to make sure the person on the end of the message is who they say they are. Ask them a question only they would know the answer to!

The Westpac team at Kings Meadow were very gracious during IDCARE's visit, even setting up a pop-up booth for their customers to attend after our private staff briefing, which occurred before opening. This gave staff and clients one-on-one time to discuss personal matters and speak more freely about cybercrime encounters.

Thanks for having us, Tasmania!!!