Protecting potential victims from fraud is in the spotlight as many people are unaware of the dangers they face daily when transacting and communicating online.
Smith believes that these statistics are set to worsen. “Unfortunately, it is only going to get worse as criminals become more sophisticated and people continue to work from home, leaving them without the advanced protection of their workplace’s internal security infrastructure.” “We have heard of various incidents where buyers lost their deposits due to phishing scams. This ultimately derailed their dreams of homeownership because of poorly-secured deposit hosting.
While this act aims to provide greater protections for potential victims and stronger consequences for cybercrime perpetrators, it also means that estate agents who fall for phishing scams may be seen as unwitting accomplices to the crime and therefore held liable. “The first is to follow best-practice security protocol. This should include not sending banking details over email, using strong passwords, not opening suspicious-looking links, calling the agent or buyer to confirm that email communications have in fact come from them, not conducting financial transactions over open WiFi networks and ensuring that you have the latest anti-virus and malware software installed on your devices.