The banking industry is increasingly becoming a favourite among cyber criminals, according to security vendor MailGuard, which has detected a new phishing email scam purporting to be from Westpac.

Australians who are older, Indigenous or have disabilities reported record losses to scammers in 2018, according to the latest Scamwatch report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

More than $5 million was lost to scams in 2018 involving gift cards — a 38% increase compared to 2017 — with iTunes cards accounting for $3.1 million in losses, according to Scamwatch, the competition watchdog ACCC’s scam warning service.