It is Thursday, the 9th of October 2025. Qantas has been caught up in a massive cyberattack that’s hit 39 companies around the globe, and hackers are threatening to leak sensitive passenger data unless ransoms are paid by tomorrow night. Hacker collective ScatteredLapsus$ Hunters claims to have stolen almost 1 billion records by targeting customers of cloud technology giant Salesforce. It has been “vishing”, or voice phishing, whereby hackers pose as legitimate employees and call company IT helpdesks, convincing unsuspecting staff to grant them access.
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Tesla has unveiled stripped-down versions of its best-selling SUVs and sedan, as it pushes to boost sales following the lapsing of US government incentives for consumers to buy EVs. Tesla has launched a “standard” Model Y and Model 3 that lack features like vegan leather seats and power-adjusted steering wheels, hoping to draw in budget-conscious buyers.
Fear-o-meter
The massive cyberattack on Qantas and other companies, including Toyota, Google, AdSense, Cisco, Disney, Air France-KLM and Ikea, highlights that the most at-risk part of a company’s technology security is human interaction.
In this instance, rather than directly hacking Salesforce’s systems, the hackers used voice phishing calls and convinced IT helpdesk staff to install what appeared to be legitimate software.
Once installed, this Trojan horse gave hackers unfettered access to customer databases. In this case, the stolen data reportedly includes customer dates of birth, passport numbers and purchase histories collected between April 2024 and September 2025.
It is the hardest component of internet security to guard against. Companies can train people continuously, yet a momentary lapse in judgement or concentration can have huge ramifications.
Fear & Greed Q+A today
"When we think about things like a climate or a circularity transition or a nature transition, it requires everybody to step forward together at the same time and go down the same pathway. And so I think true success is about how you work well with others and that you can collaboratively move towards those ambitious targets around sustainability."
