According to investigations, last year alone more than $600 billion were lost internationally due to cybercrimes and victims included senior citizens who were too naive to understand the tricks employed by the hackers. As such, the senior citizens lost a good chunk of their life-long savings. The findings of the alarming situation led the welfare states to initiate programs to protect the senior citizens. There are lots of measures that can be undertaken to enhance the online security of senior citizens. In this article, we are going to discuss the same. First of all, we are going to discuss the commonly noticed scams and as such we are going to discuss these scams and their modus operandi first.
Commonly Observed Scam:
- Scams Through Email:
One of the most common types of scams is communicated through email. This type of crime is known as “phishing”. Through phishing, all the personal and sensitive information is stolen in order to exploit it for financial thefts. In a phishing scam, the hacker pretends to be someone from a reliable source such as a renowned bank, multinational company and they ask the vulnerable targets, most of the time senior citizens included, to provide the personal financial details to be eligible for financial benefits. The personal sensitive details could include usernames, passwords, ATM card info and credit card info.
Once you give out such details to the hackers, you are financially doomed. They may originate from well-known domains to authenticate their status. In the email, you are asked to visit a particular website, a decoy in fact. The website offers a wide range of products at very attractive prices. Once you complete your purchase from there, your personal information gets stored there. The information includes your credit card details. Later, your credit card is found to be hacked by the guys who sent you the email. The process is known as “phishing”.
- Whaling:
Whaling is another form of an email scam that is carried out very commonly by hackers against the old age senior citizens. Normally, this type of cybercrime is carried out against those senior citizens who opt to start their own business after they get retired. Apparently, the email seems to come from a high-level business tycoon or C-level executive. The naive senior citizens with almost no knowledge of cybercrime, get tempted by the lucrative offers made in the email. Tempted by the bumper financial benefits, the senior citizens provide all the personal information to the website and suffer from financial loss subsequently.
In order to avoid such scams, it is highly suggested to verify the identification of the sender of the email. Do not fall prey to the high-level designation of the sender because it is fake and is a kinda trap. So before you get set to follow their directions, cross verify the sender’s credentials. You can do that simply by sending an email to the company they represent by getting email address from the company’s website directly. The original company’s reply will confirm if the email was really sent by them or it was a scam to rob the senior citizens of their life-long savings.
