Cyber crime has changed: in the course of 20 years, it has progressed from a nuisance which most savvy Internet users could avoid to a globally orchestrated criminal operation that even seasoned cybersecurity and IT professionals fall victim to on a regular basis.
Gone are the days of colorful pop-ups which congratulate you for being “the millionth visitor” and ask for your credit card number. Gone are the days of Nigerian princes asking for Western Union money transfers by email, in suspiciously broken English.
In place of these cheesy and easily recognizable tactics, today’s Internet users are frequently targeted by cyber campaigns personalized for individuals, specific organizations and narrow demographics.
If young digital natives are struggling to defend themselves - and they are – one can imagine how bad the problem is for elderly Americans who did not grow up with the Internet, the Web, or connected devices. It’s time that someone stepped up to defend them – and fortunately, some are beginning to.
What Cyber Crime is Like Today
On the modern Web, sophisticated scams and cyberattacks are waiting around every corner: they are never more than just a few clicks away. The forms they can take are nearly limitless, including -
- Urgent LinkedIn messages from someone with the same name and face as your boss, co-worker or close friend – someone who drops real information about you in the course of the conversation.
- Emails that appear to originate from your corporate domain, with perfect English, proper branding, and information about ongoing company initiatives.
- Fake web stores which are identical to ones you frequently shop at, offering one-time deals that are just too good to ignore.
- “Drive-by” attacks – including data theft, browser exploits and phishing attacks – made possible by vulnerable third-party code deployed across popular apps and websites.
These were all possible scenarios just one year ago – and since then, the game has changed again with the arrival of advanced AI that can help malicious actors to target exponentially more victims with personalized messages, write malicious code faster, and even find new attack vectors for popular websites and applications.
The numbers are in: the impact of advancements in cyber crime is dramatic across every age group, with the elderly and other vulnerable populations suffering more than anyone else.
More and More Victims
According to data from the FBI, over 800,000 U.S citizens reported that they were victims of cyber crime in 2022, with losses from these attacks exceeding $10 billion. One might imagine that members of Gen-Z – the most online age group – would be far more resilient to scams: but the opposite is true.
Between 2017 and 2022, the number of people aged 20 or younger who fell victim to online scams increased by 2,500% - a more dramatic growth than any other age group. This is likely because attackers have tailored their tactics for members of this cohort.
But unsurprisingly, the elderly lost far more as a result of cyber crime than young Americans did - $3.1 billion vs. $210 million. Even while most elderly Americans own a smartphone and regularly browse the Web, most struggle, with only 26% reporting that they are “very confident” with digital devices.
Ultimately, cyber actors take advantage of the disparity in digital literacy across many vulnerable groups – not just the elderly, but also young children and lower income Americans who lack easy access to digital devices and training resources.
A Responsibility to Protect
Those who are in a position to protect the vulnerable from malicious actors have a responsibility to do so: this is a statement of basic ethics that few would disagree with. But for those who need more persuasion, it’s also worth arguing from a consistent application of our changing social and policy norms.
Cyber crime would be less of an issue if digital platforms were an optional part of our daily lives. But this has not been the case for some time: during the pandemic, for instance, we asked the elderly to sequester themselves from family and friends, promising that their loved ones were just a text message or FaceTime call away.
Even now, many elderly Americans still depend on digital platforms for this purpose. If we’ve come to such a point that we can outsource jobs, education and human connection to digital channels, we also have an obligation to make those channels safe – certainly for the most vulnerable users, if not for anyone else.
Proxyware: A Step in the Right Direction
Today, some state governments have taken steps towards addressing the problem of cyber crime against the elderly, partnering with private researchers to understand how cyber actors tailor their attacks for users within elderly home and living facilities.Proxyware deploys virtual users who behave exactly like real users within a network environment. It scans all third parties who connect with the user during their web session, looking for signs of phishing attacks, unauthorized data collection, malicious downloads and other suspicious activity.
This information can then be added to endpoint security tools that prevent malicious actors from reaching vulnerable users. It can also be sent to upstream partners (such as websites and ad networks) to ensure that abusive third parties are removed from the Internet – at least for a time.
Proxyware has gained the cooperation of public institutions and state governments seeking to better understand the dangers their users face online. In the future, wider adoption by other state and local governments means a safer Internet for those who need it most.