Americans receive the most scam calls in the world
Digital fraud and spam diets are a global problem, but you will find it difficult to find anywhere more flooded than the United States. And the problem is only getting worse.
The blatant statistics are exposed in at least two important surveys published before the month of awareness of cybersecurity in October. The fourth annual digital evaluation of Consumer Reports shows a 50% increase in attempted scam by SMS and messaging in the past year. Meanwhile, a survey of 10,500 people of speakers research indicates that Americans feed around 100 attempts to swindle per month, against an average of 84 in the United Kingdom. Australians, however, know half the number seen in the United States. But while scams continue to frequently target older demography, one of the most spectacular increases concerns younger populations.
“Gen Z is a victim of the registration level of scams by text,” said Jason Dorsey, president of the Center for Generational Kinetics, in the Consumer Reports study.
Dorsey and the co-researchers cited three main reasons behind the growing figures, two of which are directly linked. Textos remain the main method of social communication of Gen Z, often generating hundreds of messages per day in large group cats. However, these collective conversations frequently include unknown contacts, which facilitates the confusion of a crook phone number for a friend’s number. Young people also generally have less experience in identifying scams, which makes them particularly sensitive. All this is aggravated by the possibility of instantly accessing funds or bank accounts via mobile bank applications.
“For many, especially with scams in small dollars, the experience has become so common that it seems almost normal,” wrote Dorsey.
The situation is not lost on the targets of crooks. The housing research surveys show about three -quarters of all world respondents feel “more concerned” by their personal and private information than they did only five years ago. At the same time, less than 25% of them feel “very confident” in their ability to differentiate an online program from a legitimate message. This is directly exacerbated by automatic learning and phishing projects based on AI which include false applications. They often produce more convincing digital messages and environments that facilitate the dupe of the targets.
Despite these reports and others, more aggressive regulatory monitoring is not likely in the near future. In September, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX.) Blocked the legislation proposed by Senator Rob Wyden (D-Ou.) Called the protective Americans against the law on doxing and political violence. Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission also unveiled plans to facilitate consumer protection as part of a wider thrust for deregulation.
This means that individuals will have to continue to strengthen their own digital security, at least for the moment. Fortunately, this can be accomplished in various ways, in particular by using password managers, by registering for multifactorial authentication options and blocking third -party browser trackers.
“Government and industry must do more to protect the confidentiality and safety of consumers,” urged the director of the consumer program, Yael Grauer. “With federal consumer protection agencies confronted with reduced resources, it is even more essential to allow consumers to adopt strong cybersecurity practices against scams and increasingly sophisticated attacks.”
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