Almost half of Australians experience cybercrime, study finds
Josh Butler
Nearly half of Australians experienced some form of cybercrime last year, with the federal government urging people not to reuse online passwords and make sure they have multi-factor authentication on devices.
Some Australians are getting more confident in identifying online crime, which is leading to focus less on protective behaviours, with a whopping 22% of people experiencing identity crime
The Australian Institute of Criminology said online abuse, identity theft, malware and scams were the most common forms of online crime experienced last year. Their new report, Cybercrime in Australia 2024, was released this morning finding 9.5% of Australians were victims of fraud or online scams.
Another 26.8% experienced online abuse or harassment, 21.9% were victims of identity crime, and 20.6% encountered malware attacks.
“While some types of cybercrime declined compared with 2023, the report found protective behaviours – such as using strong passwords and security updates – remain worryingly low,” said Tony Burke, the minister for home affairs and cybersecurity.
The AIC report found only 50% of people used unique passwords for their online accounts, down from 53% the year before. Only 58% of people used multi factor authentication to login.
“Respondents were more confident in their knowledge of technology in 2024 than in 2023, which may lead them to place less importance on protective behaviours,” the AIC said.
Burke said Australians should take more care.
“Remember these three simple steps to stay safe online – always install the latest software updates, use unique passphrases, and enable multifactor authentication wherever it’s available,” he said.
Key events
Ley criticises leak of Treasury advice before productivity roundtable
The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, sharply criticised the Labor government after the ABC received a leaked document from Treasury that includes a number of recommended outcomes for the productivity roundtable, which isn’t scheduled to take place until next week.
The ABC published details of the pre-written list of ideas that could come from the roundtable, including a freeze on the National Construction Code and measures to speed up housing approvals. A spokesperson for the treasurer said the list’s preparation was standard procedure, and the government was not “pre-empting ideas” but “preparing for them as you would expect”.
Ley, however, claimed the leaks demonstrated the productivity roundtable was just an exercise that is “being choreographed”. She told Channel 9’s Today this morning:
It’s all been lined up. Statements are ready to go out. People are going there in good faith, and they want to see outcomes. They want to see us growing the economic pie, and they want to see Australians pay less tax and be rewarded for their effort. And I fear that none of those things are actually on the agenda at this productivity roundtable.
Meanwhile, there’s a growing list of broken promises. Your energy bills would come down. In fact, they’re going up … But tax is really the main thing on this productivity roundtable.
Billionaire Atlassian co-founder says benefits of AI models outweigh concerns about fair use of artists’ work
Scott Farquhar, the billionaire co-founder of Atlassian and the chair of the Tech Council of Australia, said the benefits of artificial intelligence language models outweigh concerns about the use of artists’ work in an interview with ABC’s 7.30 last night.
Farquhar has advocated for an “urgent” overhaul of Australia’s copyright rules, saying they are out of step with other countries and training AI language models could unlock “billion of dollars of foreign investment into Australia”. But many artists have rejected that suggestion and said they should be compensated instead, saying allowing the models to do so would lead to “rampant theft” of intellectual property.
7.30’s Sarah Ferguson asked how about how “right now, AI companies are just gobbling up all of that material for free. That’s what the artists are calling theft. Do you think that should stop?” Farquhar replied:
I think that the benefits of the large language models and so forth that we’ve got outweigh those issues …
We have to work out what is fair use for these AI models. I don’t think it is nothing, that they can’t do anything. …
If someone had used my intellectual property to compete with me, then I think that is an issue, directly with me. If they’d used all the intellectual property of all the software on the world to help people write software better in the future, I think that is a fair use.
Henry Belot
EV drivers could soon face road user charges
On Monday the federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, flagged the possibility electric car drivers being hit with a road tax as more people switch to battery-powered vehicles.
And we are reporting elsewhere today that Anthony Albanese has signalled that next week’s productivity summit will tackle the issue of charging EV drivers to use the roads.
Money collected by the fuel excise helps fund the federal budget and is not directly allocated to roads, but some motoring groups have urged governments to adopt road pricing as EV uptake grows.
Last week, the AAA released Australia’s first independent testing of the battery range in electric vehicles. The federally funded program, designed to give consumers more accurate information, focused on cars made by Tesla, BYD, Kia and Smart.
The extended range variant of the BYD Atto3 had the largest discrepancy, according to the AAA, with a real-world range of 369km, 23% lower than the 480km achieved in laboratory testing. The Smart #3 had the lowest, with only a 5% difference.
The Tesla Model 3 had a real-world range 14% lower than the lab test. Tesla’s Model Y and the Kia EV6 both had a real world range 8% lower.
Despite showing a gap between lab and real-world results, the AAA and electric vehicle industry representatives said the results should reduce range anxiety among consumers looking to buy an EV.
The Electric Vehicle Council industry body’s head of legal, policy and advocacy, Aman Gaur, said the AAA’s results should “give confidence that EVs have more than enough range for everyday Australians”.
Good morning, and thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started today. Nick Visser here to take up the reins. Let’s get to it.
Henry Belot
Battery EV sales reach record high
The number of battery electric vehicles sold in Australia hit a record high in the three months to 30 June, with sales increasing by 63% when compared to the first quarter of 2025.
Data compiled by the nation’s peak motoring body shows 29,244 battery electric vehicles were sold in the latest three month period, up from 17,901 registered sales.
Battery electric vehicles accounted for 9.3% of all new cars sold during this period, according to the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), up from 6.3%.
The number of internal combustion engine cars increased from 205,911 to 226,306 during this period. But the market share of petrol and diesel cars remained steady at 72% thanks to the increase in electric and hybrid sales.
“In the first half of 2023, battery electric vehicles outsold hybrids nationally, but since then hybrids have outsold battery electric vehicles in eight consecutive quarters,” the AAA research said.
Medium sized SUVs remain Australia’s most popular car and represent almost a quarter of all new light vehicles sales. About 20% of these were battery electric vehicles.
A total of 314,185 new cars were sold during the three month period, up from 284,538 in the first quarter of 2025.
Almost half of Australians experience cybercrime, study finds
Josh Butler
Nearly half of Australians experienced some form of cybercrime last year, with the federal government urging people not to reuse online passwords and make sure they have multi-factor authentication on devices.
Some Australians are getting more confident in identifying online crime, which is leading to focus less on protective behaviours, with a whopping 22% of people experiencing identity crime
The Australian Institute of Criminology said online abuse, identity theft, malware and scams were the most common forms of online crime experienced last year. Their new report, Cybercrime in Australia 2024, was released this morning finding 9.5% of Australians were victims of fraud or online scams.
Another 26.8% experienced online abuse or harassment, 21.9% were victims of identity crime, and 20.6% encountered malware attacks.
“While some types of cybercrime declined compared with 2023, the report found protective behaviours – such as using strong passwords and security updates – remain worryingly low,” said Tony Burke, the minister for home affairs and cybersecurity.
The AIC report found only 50% of people used unique passwords for their online accounts, down from 53% the year before. Only 58% of people used multi factor authentication to login.
“Respondents were more confident in their knowledge of technology in 2024 than in 2023, which may lead them to place less importance on protective behaviours,” the AIC said.
Burke said Australians should take more care.
“Remember these three simple steps to stay safe online – always install the latest software updates, use unique passphrases, and enable multifactor authentication wherever it’s available,” he said.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then my colleague Nick Visser will be in the hot seat.
Almost half of Australians experienced some form of cybercrime last year, according to a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology, with close to 22% of people experiencing some sort of identity crime. In response, the federal government is urging people not to reuse online passwords and make sure they have multi-factor authentication on devices. More details in a minute.
The number of battery electric vehicles sold in Australia hit a record high in the three months to 30 June, with sales increasing by 63% when compared with the first quarter of 2025. Figures from the AAA shows 29,244 battery electric vehicles were sold in the latest three-month period, up from 17,901 registered sales. It comes as we report this morning that the government is ready to introduce road charging for EV drivers to make up for the decline in revenue from petrol sales. More coming up.
