Australian Government Pilots Auto Take-Down Of Digital Asset Scam Sites

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is using a countermeasures service from the United Kingdom-based Netcraft, which has been providing a kindred service to the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Cybersecurity specialists have embraced the new trial by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to automatically take down fraud websites. The pilot witnessed dozens of fraudulent sites, including virtual currency scams, knocked offline after over three hundred were reported.

The ACCC reported that Australians had lost one hundred and thirteen million dollars in digital asset scams last year. The new pilot will be in partnership with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) and will focus on properly getting rid of fraudulent websites once they have been reported to Australian regulators to safeguard investors from falling victim to digital asset fraud.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is using a countermeasures service from the United Kingdom-based Netcraft, which has been providing a similar service for the past four years to the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre.

As per an IT News report, several websites have already been taken down. These include “phishing sites impersonating Australian businesses and government authorities,” along with “puppy scams, shoe scams, cryptocurrency investment scams and tech support scams.”