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The Times Australia

Scam Prevention Must Become a Business Resilience Priority

  • Written by: Heng Mok, CISO-in-Residence for Asia Pacific-Japan at Zscaler

Holographic Cybersecurity Scam Protection

As Australia marks Scam Awareness Week, organisations are being urged to rethink their approach to scam prevention amid a rise in increasingly sophisticated, AI-enabled cyber threats.
According to Heng Mok, CISO-in-Residence for Asia Pacific-Japan at Zscaler, scam prevention can no longer rely solely on individual vigilance or traditional security measures. Instead, it must be treated as a core business resilience and governance priority.
Australia's evolving regulatory landscape is reinforcing this shift. Under the Scams Prevention Framework, regulated banks, telecommunications providers and digital platforms will be required to take greater responsibility for preventing, detecting, disrupting, reporting and responding to scams.

Heng Mok, CISO-in-Residence, Asia Pacific-Japan, Zscaler:

“This Scam Awareness Week, organisations should recognise that scam prevention can no longer rely on individual caution or basic security controls alone. With Australia’s Scams Prevention Framework set to require regulated banks, telcos and digital platforms to prevent, detect, disrupt, report and respond to scams, scam prevention is, and should be, a business resilience and governance priority.

Zscaler research shows why this shift matters: Australia is among the top 10 most targeted countries globally for phishing activity. This comes as attackers continue to abuse legitimate AI platform features, such as shareable chats, to make malicious content appear more credible.

MFA can no longer be treated as the final line of defence. Organisations need stronger visibility, identity-based controls and Zero Trust principles to reduce the risk of scams becoming a broader compromise.”

With AI lowering the barriers for cybercriminals to create convincing scams at scale, experts warn that businesses must adopt a more proactive and layered security strategy. Strengthening identity controls, improving visibility across digital environments and implementing Zero Trust architectures will be critical to defending against the next generation of scam and phishing attacks.

About Heng Mok


Heng Mok is CISO-in-Residence for Asia Pacific-Japan at Zscaler, where he advises organisations on cybersecurity strategy, risk management and Zero Trust security practices. He believes achieving cyber resilience for strategic business outcomes requires embedding the right combination of people, partners, processes, and technology.

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