Australian small business owners might be seeing fewer scam attempts land in their inboxes… but when scammers do get through, the damage hits harder.

New analysis from BizCover shows scam reports dropped 20.8 per cent in 2025, but total losses still climbed to $295.4 million. The average hit per incident jumped more than 30 per cent to $1,762.

“Lower report volumes do not necessarily mean businesses are safer,” says BizCover’s Chief Information Security Officer, Akshaye Kalkura. “Instead, it indicates that when scams succeed, they are causing more financial damage than previous years.”

Job scams explode

Scammers are also taking adopting new approaches to steal your data. Have you seen a rise in dodgy job offers or recruitment messages doing the rounds or landing in your inbox? Then it probably comes as no surprise that job and employment scams have more than doubled, with losses rising to $24.9 million.

Zenius co-founder Rohit Agarwal, whose company specialises in remote hiring, says  scammers have lifted their game. The days of trusting your instincts, whether something is real or fake is getting harder to rely on.

“Scammers are not posing as generic recruiters anymore. They are mimicking real companies and even cloning LinkedIn profiles.”

Phishing isn’t dead

While recruitment impersonations are rising, phishing still ranks as the most common scam. Reports of phishing scams have dropped by a third, but losses to scammers have jumped 51.7 per cent, and the average loss has more than doubled.

Kalkura says phishing emails aren’t the clunky, typo-riddled messages they used to be.

“Today’s phishing campaigns are often highly targeted and designed to mimic legitimate communications from suppliers, banks or internal teams.”

Add AI into the mix and things get even trickier.

“AI tools allow fraudsters to generate highly convincing emails, invoices and messages that closely resemble legitimate business communications.”

Investment scams doing real damage

While some scam types are slowing down, the big-money plays are still cleaning up. Investment scams alone accounted for $172.2 million in losses, more than half the total. The average loss per case was a hefty $25,376.  These scams tend to follow a familiar pattern: build trust, create urgency, then push for quick action.

“High-loss schemes often succeed because they exploit trust and urgency,” says Kalkura.

Who’s at risk?

The data shows younger Australians are being caught out more often than you might expect, with losses among 18 to 24-year-olds jumping 87.3 per cent.

Men are also losing more money per scam on average, despite fewer incidents overall.

Online channels remain the main hunting ground for scammers, racking up $130.4 million in losses.

How to keep your business safe

The reality is that many scams don’t rely on fancy tech at all. They rely on busy people, making rushed decisions.

“Many scams succeed not because of sophisticated technology, but because they exploit vulnerabilities in everyday business processes,” says Kalkura.

So how can you keep your business safe? The fixes aren’t flashy, but they work: Train your team to spot red flags, use multi-factor authentication wherever you can and set clear rules around payments and information requests.

Not exactly thrilling stuff, but a lot cheaper than losing a few grand to a fake invoice that looked legit. As long as scammers are getting more selective and more convincing, small business owners need to stay on high alert.

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