Australian businesses have lost $2.8 million to scammers in 2018 as hackers target business emails in a new scam, prompting the competition watchdog, the ACCC, to issue a call to businesses to urgently review how they verify and pay accounts and invoices.

Phishing, unexpected prize and lottery scams and identity theft are among the 1800 scams which have hit Australia’s indigenous communities, causing losses of $3 million so far this year.

Emails claiming to be from Optus are the latest scam to circulate in Australia as scammers attempt to trick anyone opening the email to provide their credit card information to pay a supposedly unpaid bill from the telco.