{"id":196691,"date":"2026-03-17T09:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T13:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/17\/growing-threat-of-scams-hits-australias-not-for-profit-nfp-sector-hard\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T10:05:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T14:05:21","slug":"growing-threat-of-scams-hits-australias-not-for-profit-nfp-sector-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/17\/growing-threat-of-scams-hits-australias-not-for-profit-nfp-sector-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Threat Of Scams Hits Australia\u2019s Not-For-Profit (NFP) Sector Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing Threat Of Scams Hits Australia\u2019s Not-For-Profit (NFP) Sector Hard<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/cybersecurityventures.com\/growing-threat-of-scams-hits-australias-not-for-profit-nfp-sector-hard\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-17 09:23:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: cybersecurityventures.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
\nMark Gaetani, National President of the St Vincent de Paul Society in Australia, recently read in Cybercrime Magazine that\u00a0cybercrime is considered the world\u2019s third-largest economy, after the U.S. and China, and that global cybercriminal activity has grown so large and expanded so rapidly, largely abetted by AI, that\u00a0cybercrime is predicted to cost the world $12.2 trillion USD annually within five years (2031), according to Cybersecurity Ventures.
\nSo it\u2019s little wonder that organisations, including charities like the\u00a0St Vincent de Paul Society, and individuals\u2014are under siege from a rising wave of digital scams, writes Gaetani, in a\u00a0Eureka Street article. Without serious investment in cyber capability, Australia\u2019s not-for-profit (NFP) sector will struggle to keep doing the work government and the community rely on it to do. Impersonation fraud is not only stealing donations to worthy causes; it is eroding public trust in charities at a time when demand for their help keeps growing.
\nFake charity websites and social media pages now mimic legitimate organisations so closely that even experienced donors can be fooled. Scammers clone logos, copy language and hijack campaigns, then funnel \u2018donations\u2019 straight into criminal pockets.\u00a0Every fraudulently obtained dollar\u00a0is money that never reaches a real family struggling to remain housed, a student trying to stay in school, or an older person skipping meals to pay medical bills.<\/p>\n

For organisations like St. Vincent de Paul Society, this is becoming a relentless \u2018whack-a-mole\u2019 exercise; as fast as one fake page is reported and taken down, another appears, most often using AI-generated content that deceitfully and convincingly mimics the original.\u00a0The human cost is significant. When donors discover they have been scammed, the sense of betrayal transfers to the charity brand they thought they were supporting. Over time, this breeds a cautious, mistrustful public who would rather not donate than risk being scammed again.
\nAustralia\u2019s NFP sector\u00a0is an integral pillar of the national economy, not a sideshow. More than 300,000 organisations, including around 60,000 registered charities, of which the Society is one, employ about one in ten working Australians and mobilise millions of volunteers. These organisations deliver essential services on behalf of government in housing and homelessness, poverty relief, domestic violence, food aid, disability, aged care, mental health, disaster recovery and more.
\nOne reason Australia\u2019s safety net is stretched to breaking point\u2014in addition to working-age income supports not keeping pace with the increased cost of living\u2014is that\u00a0reputable charities are being undermined by sophisticated online scams.
\nSt Vincent de Paul Society was founded in France in 1833 by a group of dedicated Catholics who put their faith into action to support the poor in their community. Today, the organization is active in 150 countries through 800,000 members and 1,500,000 volunteers, and it helps over 30 million people every day.<\/p>\n

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Growing Threat Of Scams Hits Australia\u2019s Not-For-Profit (NFP) Sector Hard https:\/\/cybersecurityventures.com\/growing-threat-of-scams-hits-australias-not-for-profit-nfp-sector-hard\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-17 09:23:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":196692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cybersecurityventures.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/blogphoto12.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,24],"class_list":["post-196691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196693,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196691\/revisions\/196693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}