“Joker’s Stash”, the largest dark web marketplace for buying & selling stolen payment card data, announced on January 15, 2021 that it is shutting down. The last day of activity will be February 15, 2021.

It’s the time of year when many of us will be taking a well-deserved break, but unfortunately for consumers and organisations, cyber criminals don’t take holidays. A year of unprecedented alarm and uncertainty, coupled with the growing sophistication of cybercriminals, has nurtured the perfect breeding ground for online scams, which according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have jumped a staggering 42% this year—with nearly AU$7 million lost.1

Fraud rates for Unemployment Insurance Benefits (UIB) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) are out of control. In May 2020, Brian Krebs of Krebsonsecurity published two articles detailing fraud that was occurring in several different state’s UIB portals. These states had been warned by the US Secret Service to be on the lookout for this. Reading the articles, the common theme is that many states are missing rudimentary controls for combating fraud.