Key events
Cait Kelly
Crackdown on spoofing scams
A global messaging company has become the first telco to be investigated by the Australian Communications and Media Authority for breaching Australia’s new anti-spoofing rules.
In spoofing scams fraudsters hide their number and display one from a legitimate organisation like a bank, government agency or road toll company.
An Acma investigation found that the SMS-focused telco Modica allowed customers to send SMS using text-based sender IDs (ie a name) without making sufficient checks to ensure they weren’t being used to perpetrate scams.
Acma chair Nerida O’Loughlin said:
While we did not find evidence any scammers had used the vulnerability created by Modica, its failure to have adequate processes in place put people at risk of receiving SMS scams.
It is vitally important that all Australian telcos have processes in place to ensure their customers sending this type of SMS are who they say they are.
Uniform action is required across the sector as our experience has shown scammers will target the weakest link in telco systems to reach Australians.
The minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, said strong compliance was part of the “government’s comprehensive approach to scams”:
Fraudsters cause financial and immeasurable emotional and mental stress by impersonating legitimate organisations every day, and we thank the ACMA for its important work to help protect Australians.
Since July 2022 Australian telcos have reported blocking almost 90m SMS under these new rules, she added:
One more scam is one too many, and cases like this prove the action we are taking to fight non-compliance by telcos is effective, as well as serving as a warning to other companies.
Daniel Hurst
Indonesian ministers in Canberra for ‘2+2’ meeting
Indonesian and Australian ministers have promised to be transparent with each other about their defence plans, as the Albanese government prepares to finalise a significant defence spending shake-up and the Aukus submarine program.
The Australian defence and foreign affairs ministers, Richard Marles and Penny Wong, held talks with their Indonesian counterparts, Prabowo Subianto and Retno Marsudi, in Canberra yesterday for a “2+2” meeting.
The four ministers committed to transparency about their strategic and defence policy settings. They are due to have another meeting focused on cooperation in Canberra today, while the foreign ministers head to Adelaide for a Bali process ministerial meeting focused on people smuggling and transnational crime.
The previous 2+2 meeting between Australian and Indonesian ministers was held in September 2021 when the Coalition was in power, just a week before the Aukus submarine plans were unveiled.
The lack of a heads-up to Indonesia about Aukus became a difficulty for the former Coalition government to manage (and Indonesia joined Malaysia in expressing concerns about the submarine plans at the time) – so the commitment to transparency in the latest meeting is noteworthy.
Daniel Hurst
No balloons seen over Australia
Australian defence officials say they are not aware of any incidents of Chinese surveillance balloons travelling over Australian territory.
The comments come as a US official said overnight that the balloon was “clearly” for spying and another claimed China had a “fleet” of surveillance balloons of different shapes and sizes, which it has deployed over five continents or regions including south-east Asia.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that the US was in touch with its allies and partners about the matter:
We’re not alone in this … We’ve already shared information with dozens of countries around the world both from Washington and through our embassies. We’re doing so because the United States was not the only target of this broader programme which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.
Asked for an update on whether Australia was aware of any historical incidents over Australia, a Defence spokesperson told Guardian Australia last night:
Defence remains unaware of a similar balloon over Australia, however we monitor such issues closely.
The US shot down a high-altitude balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday after it crossed the whole of the continental US. China said the ballon was for weather observation purposes and had been blown off course, but the US said it was manoeuvrable.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Australian news day. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the main overnight breaking stories before my colleague Natasha May takes the reins.
We have a cracking exclusive story this morning about how the former energy minister Angus Taylor asked his department to consider delaying telling voters about electricity price rises before the May election, then made the decision to do so anyway. He later claimed he didn’t know about the rises. And it turns out Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg were in on the plan as well.
It comes on the day that rising power and gas bills and making housing more affordable will be on the agenda of a meeting of treasurers. The online meeting, hosted by federal treasurer Jim Chalmers, comes as the Reserve Bank releases its latest statement on monetary policy later this morning.
We also have an excellent story from our medical editor, Mel Davey, about how researchers at the University of Sydney believe the key to Covid immunity might lie with the discovery of a receptor protein in lungs which “acts a bit like molecular velcro” and sticks to the spike of the virus. This means the virus is immobilised in people with lots of the protein, possibly explaining how some people don’t become infected and others become very ill.
The US believe without doubt that the Chinese balloon that flew over North America for more than a week before being shot down over the Atlantic was “clearly for spying”. A US official made the claims overnight. Australian defence officials say they are not aware of any incidents of Chinese surveillance balloons travelling over Australian territory.
With that, let’s get going for the day.
