Feb 24, 2024 18:00:00

Why are young members of Generation Z more likely to be victims of online fraud than older adults?

Generation Z , born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, has had access to the Internet since they can remember and has grown up with smartphones. Intuitively, it might seem that young, internet-savvy people are less likely to fall for online fraud, but research has found that they are actually more likely to be victims than older boomers .

Gen Z vs. boomers: young adults are victims of online scams more often - Vox
https://www.vox.com/technology/23882304/gen-z-vs-boomers-scams-hacks/

According to

a study by consulting firm Deloitte Insights, Gen Z Americans are 16% more likely to be victims of phishing, identity theft, romance scams, and cyberbullying, compared to 5% of boomers. It was said to be expensive. Boomers were also twice as likely to have their social media accounts hacked.

Furthermore, the online research service Social Catfish has published an annual report summarizing the state of internet fraud, and states that the total damage caused by online fraud where the victim is under the age of 20 will increase from $8.2 million (approximately 1.23 billion yen) in 2017 to 2022. It is reported that in 2017, the amount increased rapidly to 210 million dollars (approximately 31.53 billion yen).

There are three main theories regarding the question, 'Why are Generation Z, who are supposed to be more knowledgeable about the Internet than any other generation, vulnerable to online fraud and hacking?'

・Gen Z uses technology more than any other generation, so they are more likely to fall victim to technology-mediated fraud.
- Younger generations who have grown up with the Internet may become so familiar with their own devices that they prioritize convenience over safety.
・Cybersecurity education in schools is not tailored to the real-life experiences young people have online.

“I think Gen Z is really thinking about cybersecurity because they have to live with these threats every day,” said Kayla, a computer science student at Stanford University.・Mr. Guru speaks.

Mr. Guru, who is 21 years old at the time of writing this article, has a history of launching the cybersecurity education organization Bits N' Bytes Cybersecurity Education when he was a teenager. When Mr. Guru teaches young people about email safety and social engineering, he often gets them to understand immediately.

'They often say, 'Oh, I remember someone doing something similar to me,' or 'I've seen these kinds of spammers on Instagram many times,'' Gul said.

The types of online scams targeting Gen Z are no different from those targeting other age groups. However, because young people interact with technology more frequently and on more devices than middle-aged people, they are said to have more opportunities to encounter fraudulent emails and suspicious online shops.

Taneasha Gordon, head of data and digital trust at Deloitte Insights, said: 'Young people often shop online, but there are so many fraudulent sites on the internet that seem to target young people. The same goes for phishing emails, and while there are scam emails full of typos, there are also a lot of very sophisticated scam emails out there.''

The existence of social media, where safety tends to take a backseat, is also viewed as a problem. Social media could become a lot more secure if popular platforms like Instagram required users to re-login with two-factor authentication every time they opened the app.

Older generations may be less resistant to such hassles, but for those who grew up using social media as an important form of self-expression, strict security may just be a nuisance.

Mr. Gul believes that future security education will be more familiar to Generation Z if it approaches safety as part of how to be active online, rather than positioning safety as a concept that conflicts with convenience. Masu.

In addition to this, educating Gen Z about the systems that provide incentives to commit fraud is essential to preparing Gen Z for an online world filled with fraud.

'Why do these scams happen, who is pulling the strings behind the scenes, and what can we do? I think that's the last synapse we need to connect,' Gul said. talked.