According to the , international students are significantly “more susceptible” to email scams than domestic students.
Author of the report, Roderic Broadhurst, Professor of Criminology at the Australian National University (ANU), told SBS Urdu that several methods of email scams were experimented to understand how the students responded to various levels of risks.
“The students who participated in the experiment were periodically and randomly sent emails which had some kind of a phishing attack.
“Because they are in the Australian university they would assume that generally, it is safer, so there is a lowering of awareness.”
The report states that although the nature of this relationship is unclear, international students were possibly disadvantaged by "language barriers" and/or had different experiences with cybercrime in their countries of origin.
“Naivety, lack of familiarity with the systems [are possible reasons], so that when they come on to the Australian university and into a new system, they might be more trusting or less knowledgeable about the actual system.
Highlights
- Overseas and first-year students are more susceptible to phishing scams
- Lack of knowledge about the new systems or trust in them are possible reasons that increase risks
- The report recommends that universities develop systems to help new students learn about these scams
Talking to Prof Broadhurst says that one of the methods used to target students with the intention of getting more information about them and to check how they responded to such phishing scam.
Your mailbox is full. Click here to update.
“Click here to update, is a general scam and if you click on, click here, that will take you to a landing page which maybe or maybe not mimicking your company and will persuade you to give more of your personal details.” Prof Broadhurst said.
However, Prof Broadhurst says that there are several types of scams running apart from email in Australia, including social media scams or other traditional methods that students need to be aware of.
Screenshot image of a fake traffic fine. Source: QUEENSLAND POLICE
Phishing scam via Phone
Aftab Shah*, one of the Pakistani students currently studying at the University of Wollongong says he experienced a similar scam when he arrived in Australia.
“It was my first week in Australia. My wife received a phone call that mentioned that the Police is coming as we didn’t pay our taxes.
“It was quite overwhelming as the voice of quite confronting and we were a bit scared.
“But it was also confusing at the same time because it was less than a few days that we arrived and not paying the tax was out of the question.
“Later we found out that it was a scam.”
Recommendation by the report
Prof Broadhurst says that the experiment helped in understanding the risks of the phishing scams to students and universities can plan a method or a system to create awareness about these scams for the new students.
"The university needs to focus on preparing the overseas students particularly for these kinds of risks.
"If there is an email that appears to come from your institution, it may be a spoof email or an attachment with malware."
*Name has been changed for privacy.
