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The highly sensitive information of millions of Australians — including logins for personal Australian Tax Office accounts, medical and personal data of thousands of NDIS recipients, and confidential details of an alleged assault of a Victorian school student by their teacher — is among terabytes of hacked data being openly traded online.

An ABC investigation has identified large swathes of previously unreported confidential material that is widely available on the internet, ranging from sensitive legal contracts to the login details of individual MyGov accounts, which are being sold for as little as $1 USD.

The huge volume of newly identified information confirms the high-profile hacks of Medibank and Optus represent just a fraction of the confidential Australian records recently stolen by cyber criminals.

From Cyber black market selling hacked ATO and MyGov logins shows Medibank and Optus only tip of iceberg – ABC News:

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Sue was told the fraudster created a bogus myGov account and on September 24 they linked this new profile to her ATO account using her tax file number (TFN), her date of birth, and another credential which the agency didn’t specify.

After changing her personal details, the fraudster severed Sue’s ATO account from her genuine myGov account which prevented her from seeing any refund assessment notices — it also bypassed the extra layer of protection provided by a two-factor authentication.

Sue was told by an ATO officer this was not uncommon and was advised “there are lots of fraudulent myGov accounts accessing tax files”.

From Fake myGov profiles are being used to hack ATO accounts. Sue found this out the hard way – ABC News:

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As the Bennet Institute for Public Policy asked in January 2022, “are NFTs democratizing decision-making, or the next financial mis-selling scandal?”.

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The crypto movement shares with bottom-up technopopulists the belief that direct democracy is technically (and perhaps morally) superior to representative democracy.

From Crypto populism – Bennett Institute for Public Policy:

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The crypto movement and populism are both responses to economic inequality, which they attribute to failures of political leadership. They share a distrust of elites, a conviction that institutions are at best ineffective and at worst corrupt, and an intuition that the economic system is a “rigged game”.

From Crypto populism – Bennett Institute for Public Policy:

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Almost half the UK population (48 per cent) does not pay utility bills online. That compares with 12 per cent in Finland, 14 per cent in Norway, 17 per cent in Denmark, 18 per cent in Sweden, and 19 per cent in Iceland.

Kate Fitzgerald, the head of policy at the Payment Systems Regulator, said: “People continue to use cash because they struggle to access digital payment services due to a lack of access to digital infrastructure or digital skills.”

From No wallet, no problem — welcome to life in a new cashless society | Money | The Times.

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The RBA has been printing cash rapidly over the past few years but some of it has disappeared and is out of circulation.

From Cash hoarding: Where all the Aussie banknotes have gone:

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The move drew criticism from the European Commission, which said it was not consistent with previous EU recommendations to Italy to boost tax compliance, and Giorgetti told parliament late on Sunday that the government had backtracked.

“We intend to eliminate the measure on points of sales,” he said in testimony on the budget, adding that some sort of compensatory measures may be introduced to help shopkeepers pay the commission fees on card transactions.

“I hope there will be further reflection at the European level,” he added.

Shares in Italy’s Nexi (BIT:NEXII), Europe’s biggest payment processing firm, rose as much as 5% on Monday after Rome’s announcement.

From Italy weakens plan to promote cash payments after EU criticism By Reuters:

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Transactions in this future world will be frictionless and invisible, yet the pricing will be transparent. Our digital wallets will do our transacting for us, autonomously and with our permission. The busy consumer will be spared many tedious transactions, and the underserved consumer will see opportunities open up where none existed before.
Rather than carrying cash or even cards in a physical wallet, value will be stored in a digital wallet that will be our primary account. This “wallet” is actually a sophisticated piece of software that manages multiple payment accounts, loyalty programs, and perhaps manages our investments and our identities. The value held in our wallets can be traditional funds, crypto-currency, store credit, gaming tokens, and much more. All of this value will be accessible and fungible within the wallet as users perform transactions.
In 2030, small routine transactions will be autonomous, machine-to-machine. Purchases will not require interacting with a cashier or even a website or app shopping cart. The purchase will be logged, invisibly but transparently, and your wallet will pay the merchant. This will also be the case for non- discretionary payments, such as bills. If it needs to be paid, artificial intelligence (AI) will know and do it. When approval is needed, the user will be notified. When it comes to major purchases, offers and discounts will arrive automatically, but approval will still be manual. Nonessential purchases (the fun stuff) will also largely be manual, but the potential for automation within defined parameters will be high and ubiguitous. AI will review competitive offerings and make sure your choice is the optimal one for that time and place.
What form will this AI agent take, and “where” will your wallet reside?
It will not be in the personal device you carry in your bag or pocket everywhere you go. Or rather, it will not only be in your personal device- it will be in every device you possess, in a cloud or aura that surrounds you, or stored in many places, a capability offered by Web3.

 

Guibaud, S. and S. Sieber (2022). 2030: How Embedded Finance Takes Over the World. Embedded Finance: When payments become an experience. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons: 197-222.

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Over 8 million debit cards have been sent to California residents loaded with up to $1,250. But someone forgot to put the Chip on those cards, and the cards have become a skimmers haven.

ABC7 news reports, “A growing number of Californians are reporting that scammers have drained their inflation relief debit cards, prompting one state lawmaker to raise alarms about what appears to be rampant “remote fraud”

From It’s a Fraud Blitz! No Chip On Tax Refund Debit Cards – Frank on Fraud.

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