Qantas hackers or honest callers, you’re all phishy to me

2 hours ago 3

Opinion

October 12, 2025 — 7.00pm

I was once a happy-go-lucky consumer who enjoyed ambling through shops and online indulging in some unauthorised purchases, aka those that weren’t on my list. Nowadays, I’m just highly suspicious and mildly annoyed most of the time, scowling when my phone rings, whistles or toots, alerting me to the next call, text or email attempting to inject me with dopamine and trick me into signing over the family farm.

My cynical, distrusting demeanour is again heightened with hackers holding Qantas to ransom after using “vishing” – voice phishing – to gain data from the clients of cloud-based customer-relationship platform Salesforce. Apparently, they have stolen customer data, and I am now at risk of having my information used against me.

How will I show my face when it’s discovered I’ve never been a member of the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge? I jest, of course, although that little quip did enter my head as a distraction to what it all really means for me and others who have given Qantas their details, the same details we share with dozens of other companies.

As another layer of distrust entombs me with this latest cyberattack, it also has me reflecting on just how different things are in a world that struggles to keep evil from innovation. And that has thrown this once happy-go-lucky consumer into a constant state of hypervigilance.

Two examples come to mind. First, I texted my husband recently to alert him that I’d spent $2.19 on our joint credit card. My husband checks our account every day and this was an irregular amount that may have had him suspect a rat. We’re not penny pinchers, just eagle-eyed as to who might be helping themselves to our money, uninvited.

Then, later that day, I answered an unknown number and was greeted with a subcontinent accent. I nearly hung up. You could jump to the conclusion that I’m living under coercive control or that I’m a racist, but I’m neither. I’m just getting older and determined not to be the next victim of a swindler.

As it happened, this unknown caller was legitimate. I had to reel in my snippy tone. But I’ve been conditioned to suspect the worst – that it was going to be another overseas scammer promising to fix my computer while helping himself to my log-in credentials.

I have passwords as long as your arm, double-authentications, fingerprint this, facial-recognition that, along with 114 hide-my-email addresses. Still, each day I get unsolicited junk and phishing attempts from all around the world from people who want to steal from us.

But they are only the tip of the iceberg. Equally invasive can be the marketers. Legitimate businesses that you may have engaged with once, or not at all, and will hound you until the end of days. You can opt out, add them to junk, block their number, but they will find you!

A classic was Andrew from a wine club. He called me regularly even though I have never bought even a whiff of riesling from him. In fact, I don’t drink alcohol. That didn’t deter him and blocking his number was useless as a new number would pop up next time. Every time I would ask to be removed from his list, and he would assure me he would do just that.

The last time Andrew called something broke in me. I questioned his intellect, his honesty and his grasp of technology as I explained that hell would freeze over before I would ever buy anything from his business. I would make it my life’s mission, I told him, to send people to his competitors. Harassing me was a brand-limiting move, Andrew!

How many businesses have you asked to remove your details from their list but still receive their junk? How much time do you spend dealing with these nuisances? If the answer is more than you should, then good luck to you, my friend.

Between hackers, scammers and marketers, answering my phone or anything online is treated as guilty until proven otherwise. If it’s you contacting me, expect I’ll be guarded, wary and rude until I’m assured you are someone with whom I wish to correspond, so bear with me.

And if you are still scratching your head to comprehend vishing, you are on your own. I am too busy trying to remember the name of my first boyfriend’s neighbour’s cat to look up another made-up word in the cybercrime dictionary.

Jo Pybus is a writer and host of the Alex the Seal podcast.