Australia’s financial regulator has shut down almost 12,000 scam websites in a single year, warning that artificial intelligence is intensifying the threat posed by online fraudsters.
According to ABC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) coordinated the removal of 11,964 phishing and investment scam websites across 2025 — a record figure representing a 90% increase on the 6,270 sites taken down in 2024. At its peak, the regulator was removing an average of 32 websites per day, or 230 each week.
Since launching its take-down service in 2023, ASIC has removed more than 25,000 investment scam and phishing websites in total. In addition to website removals, the regulator also took down more than 1,100 online investment scam ads on social media during the same period.
Despite the surge in activity, there are signs the crackdown is beginning to bear fruit. ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland noted a decline of around 11% in reported losses from investment scams among Australians — a figure the regulator views as an early indicator that its efforts are having an effect.
The scale of the broader scam problem in Australia remains alarming, however. According to the National Anti-Scam Centre’s latest Targeting Scams Report, Australians lost a total of $2.18bn to scams in 2025, with 481,523 scams reported to various watchdogs over the same period. The same report highlighted a growing “sophistication” among scammers, attributing this in part to the use of AI to generate scam content. Federal government watchdog Scamwatch has similarly warned of scammers leveraging AI to produce fake videos, audio recordings, and more precisely targeted scams.
ASIC’s take-down process relies on a third-party provider that actively scans the web for investment scam websites. Once identified, sites are referred to ASIC, verified, and then instructed for removal. Reports from members of the public and financial institutions, including banks, are also fed through the same process.
ASIC commissioner Alan Kirkland said, “So that says to us, [we have] to do more to stay on top of this, but we are actually having an impact.”
He added, “We have a third-party provider that actively scans the web looking for investment scam websites. When it identifies them, it refers them to us, we check them, we confirm that in our view that [it is] a scam website, and then we instruct them to take it down.”
Kirkland also noted the importance of public and industry reporting: “We do also receive reports from members of the public and from financial institutions like banks, and they get fed through the same process. It’s really important for us to know that we’re on the lookout for these websites.”
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