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Speaker 1: Good morning, team, and welcome to the Daily ODS. My

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Speaker 1: name is Sam Kazlowski. I'm the co founder of the

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Speaker 1: Daily OS. Joins today by Zara Seidler. Let's quickly run

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Speaker 1: through the COVID numbers from yesterday. There were eight hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty seven COVID cases in Victoria, eight hundred and

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Speaker 1: sixty three in New South Wales, and the Act recorded thirteen.

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Speaker 1: Of course, this was a pretty significant day of COVID

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Speaker 1: numbers because it was the first time in the Delta

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Speaker 1: outbreak that Victoria has overtaken New South Wales. Zara, what

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Speaker 1: else is happening in the news today?

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Speaker 2: So yesterday we found out that the New South Wales LGAs,

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Speaker 2: which we know local government areas of Port Macquarie and

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Speaker 2: Musselbrook entered lockdown last night but stay at home orders

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Speaker 2: in place for at least seven days. The restrictions will

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Speaker 2: apply to anyone who's been in Port Macquarie since the

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Speaker 2: seventeenth of September and anyone who's been in Muscle Brooks

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Speaker 2: since the twenty second of September. We were warned that

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Speaker 2: this was going to happen, that certain LGAs might come

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Speaker 2: in and out of lockdown, so It's expected that this

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Speaker 2: type of thing will continue as the rest of the

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Speaker 2: state continues to open.

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Speaker 1: Up over the border in Queensland and Premier Anastasia Paliche

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Speaker 1: has introduced new restrictions for Brisbane after it recorded four

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Speaker 1: new community cases of COVID yesterday. Masks are now mandatory

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Speaker 1: indoors for residents in the Brisbane and Morton local government areas,

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Speaker 1: and restrictions will return to hospitals, age care and disability facilities.

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Speaker 1: I have my eye on the NRL Grand Final and

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Speaker 1: whether we're going to hear an announcement today from both

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Speaker 1: the NRL and the Queensland government. A move to Townsville for

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Speaker 1: the game on Sunday is on the cards.

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Speaker 2: The US could be facing a government shut down after

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Speaker 2: Senate Republicans blocked an emergency spending bill that would have

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Speaker 2: lifted the limit on federal borrowing. President Joe Biden and

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Speaker 2: the Democrats must now come up with a new strategy

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Speaker 2: to raise the debt limit, which the country is expected

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Speaker 2: to reach some time in October. This might all sound

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Speaker 2: like gibberish to you, and if you need an explanation,

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Speaker 2: you can head to our newsletter explainer. When Mariah has

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Speaker 2: taken you through exactly what the debt ceiling is. Oh,

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Speaker 2: Biden is pretty optimistic about solving this issue.

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Speaker 1: More an optimist, I think things are going to go well.

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Speaker 1: People should get it done and your hump day. Good news.

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Speaker 1: From the first of November, Australians are going to be

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Speaker 1: able to buy self testing kits for COVID nineteen. The

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Speaker 1: tests are going to be available to purchase from pharmacies,

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Speaker 1: convenience stores or online, and our Health Minister Greg Hunt

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Speaker 1: said quote this is an important additional protection for Australians.

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Speaker 1: Check out the Daily Oos on YouTube. We've put up

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Speaker 1: an explainer on rapid antigen testing. It's all things that

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Speaker 1: we're going to be spitting in soon, so you might

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Speaker 1: as well get your head around it now. Zara. I

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Speaker 1: was lulled into a false sense of hope yesterday with

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Speaker 1: a text from an unknown number that said your parcel

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Speaker 1: will arrive today. It even gave me a tracking number.

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Speaker 1: I then got another one and I matched that with

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Speaker 1: other texts I've gotten pretty much every day for the

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Speaker 1: last month, and I'm not alone. Thousands of Australians have

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Speaker 1: been receiving fake messages about packaged deliveries and we were

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Speaker 1: determined to find out why.

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Speaker 2: So Sam is not alone. There has been a significant

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Speaker 2: rise in scams this year in Australia. It seems like

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Speaker 2: they know we're in lockdown, so may as well just

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Speaker 2: give us false sense of hope. According to the a

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Speaker 2: Triple C, which is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,

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Speaker 2: their Scam Watch website has said that scams delivered via

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Speaker 2: phone or text this year far outnumber those sent through

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Speaker 2: any other delivery message, including social media or email.

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Speaker 1: Breaking down that data a little further and Australians have

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Speaker 1: lost sixty three point six million dollars to scams involving

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Speaker 1: unsolicited calls or text messages so far this year.

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Speaker 2: That is thirty percent of the two hundred and eleven

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Speaker 2: million dollars that Australians have lost to all scams so

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Speaker 2: far in twenty twenty one, so it's making up a

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Speaker 2: pretty big portion of that.

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Speaker 1: That is an increase on previous years and the year

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Speaker 1: hasn't even ended yet. Last year, phone scams made up

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Speaker 1: about twenty seven percent, and the year before it was

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Speaker 1: twenty three percent. So if we include all types of scams,

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Speaker 1: there has been an eighty nine ten percent increase in

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Speaker 1: scams compared to this period last year. It is clearly

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Speaker 1: a time for scammers.

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Speaker 2: So according to the A Triple C, these scams are

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Speaker 2: disproportionately targeting and affecting vulnerable communities. There's been a notable

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Speaker 2: increase in First Nations people reporting significant financial losses. We

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Speaker 2: know that in twenty twenty, First Nations people made up

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Speaker 2: over fifteen hundred reports of phone scams with losses of

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Speaker 2: up to two hundred and twenty thousand people. The A

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Speaker 2: Triple C has also highlighted the people who speak English

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Speaker 2: as a second language have lost six point five million

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Speaker 2: dollars to phone scams just this year, and that comes

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Speaker 2: after this group was said to have lost seven point

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Speaker 2: eight million dollars to scams for the entirety of twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: So far this year, Ozzie's age sixty five and over

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Speaker 2: have reported losses of twenty million dollars from phone scams,

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Speaker 2: making up around thirty two percent of this cohort. And

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Speaker 2: I know that my grandfather, who is over the age

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Speaker 2: of ninety and who speaks English as a second language,

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Speaker 2: has been targeted time and time again by these scam.

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Speaker 1: So the questions I think we all have from here

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Speaker 1: is what is this scam? Why are we getting more

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Speaker 1: of these messages, particularly the ones around the delivery of packages,

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Speaker 1: and how do they get our number? So, according to

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Speaker 1: the scam Watch, which is the HBC's scam we talked

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Speaker 1: about earlier, it's part of a phenomenon called the flu bot. Basically,

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Speaker 1: what happens when you download a FluBot by clicking one

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Speaker 1: of those links is that it immediately accesses your passwords

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Speaker 1: and financial information on your phone. The reason why scam

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Speaker 1: Watch says that we're receiving a number of these trapped

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Speaker 1: parcel messages is because we are doing more online shopping

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Speaker 1: and scammers have identified this as a highly effective way

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Speaker 1: to get us to open the link. The interesting thing

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Speaker 1: about how scammers get our numbers is that it's probably

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Speaker 1: by chance. According to the Associate Dean for Computing and

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Speaker 1: Security at the Edith Cowan University, most malicious campaigns like

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Speaker 1: the FluBot campaign use a scattergun approach. They literally target

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Speaker 1: thousands of phone numbers sequentially. They start with four zero

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Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero zero zero and work their

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Speaker 1: way up. Now, sometimes they vary this and put in

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Speaker 1: random numbers to seem less predictable, and sometimes they actually

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Speaker 1: have lists of valid numbers.

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Speaker 2: So what is somebody like my ninety one year old

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Speaker 2: grandfather mean to do if he actually clicks on one

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Speaker 2: of these scams by accident.

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Speaker 1: So the basic rule of thumb is that nobody's going

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Speaker 1: to ask for sensitive information over a text message. Banks

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Speaker 1: will always ask you to log into a system online.

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Speaker 1: It's the same with your MyGov account. That's basically the

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Speaker 1: rule that we should all go by. If you have

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Speaker 1: clicked on the message, the guidance is pretty much to

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Speaker 1: take it straight to a cybersecurity expert. I'm not joking.

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Speaker 1: The guidance is literally to contact an IT professional and

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Speaker 1: to perform a factory reset of the device as soon

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Speaker 1: as possible. That doesn't seem like the most reassuring advice,

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Speaker 1: but I think we can all avoid that step if

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Speaker 1: we don't click on any links, and I assure you

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Speaker 1: that your package is actually coming, it's just not the

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Speaker 1: one you're being texted about.

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Speaker 2: We will wrap up on that lovely note, and if

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Speaker 2: you want to say to date on the news, follow

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Speaker 2: us on Instagram at the Daily OS. We love to

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Speaker 2: compliment our morning podcast with updated news throughout the day.

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Speaker 2: And you'll be joining a growing community there on Instagram.

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Speaker 2: Have a brilliant day.