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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and according to two significant new surveys, cybersecurity has become an issue Americans are having to deal with more digital scams than any other country in the world. This is especially a problem for Gen Z, as one expert, Jason Dorsey, president of the Center for Generational Kinetics, reports they are “falling victim to record levels of text scams.”
Consumer Reports’ Cyber Readiness Report revealed nearly half of the Americans surveyed said they had personally encountered a cyberattack or a digital scam. On top of that, 9 percent said that they had lost money to one of these scams.
The survey also found that the likelihood of losing money due to a digital scam increases as a person’s household income decreases. A whopping 29 percent of those surveyed in the lowest income group reported that they had lost money to a scam.
Gen Z is facing a cybersecurity crisis
As for why Gen Z is becoming the most susceptible to these types of digital scams, Dorsey explained, “First, texting is their primary communication channel, with hundreds of daily messages creating a perfect opening for scammers. Second, they tend to be in large group messaging threads with unknown contacts, making it easy to mistake a scammer’s number for a friend’s number. Third, they have less experience spotting scams but instant access to money on their phones, reducing friction for scams to succeed. For many, especially with small-dollar scams, the experience has become so common that it feels almost normal!”
“In a change from last year’s survey, scams that began in a text message or a messaging app have become more commonly reported,” the report explained. “Three in 10 of those who had experienced a cyberattack or digital scam said it began over a text message or a messaging app, while only 20 percent said that last year. The percentage who said their scam began over email, 27 percent, has not meaningfully changed. Social media scams have decreased somewhat, to 17 percent in this year’s survey from 23 percent last year.”
Americans get the most scam messages and calls in the world
In another large poll conducted by Talker Research, found that the average American gets an average of nine scam calls, nine scam emails and seven scam text messages every single week, which adds up to around 100 scam attempts per month. By comparison, UK citizens receive an average of 84 different scam attempts during a typical month, Australians are subject to about 52 scam messages per month, and those in Singapore receive around 40 scam attempts per month.
“According to the survey, respondents use just 12 unique passwords for work, and 17 for personal accounts, which is not only a huge inconvenience but exposes significant risk, as passwords are the number one cause of breaches,” said Darryl Jones, Vice President of Consumer Segment Strategy at Ping Identity. “Passwords alone are not enough to protect your data; they’re easily compromised, and attackers are even impersonating multi-factor authentication requests. A stronger option is to adopt passkeys, which use a private key stored on your device and are protected by biometrics like face or touch ID. Passkeys are both a safer and simpler way to keep your information secure in the age of AI.”
The digital scams people fear the most, according to the Talker Research poll, are AI-driven phishing, fake apps, deepfake attacks, voice cloning scams, synthetic identify fraud, AI-generated influencers and personalities, and augmented reality scams.