Over 60% of the world’s population relies on technology to navigate their daily lives — that’s over 5 billion people! Unfortunately, with such a large audience online, bad actors have turned to technology to deploy scams and make a profit. Scammers use an array of channels to target people with phishing and social engineering scams that appear real, in order to trick them into handing over valuable personal information. From spoofed phone calls that appear to be from reputable businesses to “special offers” on social media, to fake versions of legitimate websites, emails, and text messages, scams are now appearing everywhere — all the time.
To shed light on the world of digital scams, Lookout commissioned a survey that spoke to 1,000 U.S. consumers to understand where (and how frequently) people encounter scams, whether they have fallen victim to scammers, and the associated impact. The findings confirmed that we are in the midst of a digital scam “surge,” with the vast majority of people incessantly encountering scams across many digital channels, and with social media emerging as the area where people are being victimized.
Scams are happening everywhere and all the time
It may come as no surprise that email and text message scams are amongst the most frequently encountered. In fact, our survey shows that every month, almost 9 in 10 respondents received a scam email, and 8 in 10 received a text message scam.
Taking a deeper look, 46% of these people…
