Studies of scam victims shows Gen Z increasingly targeted due to online activity

WASHINGTON — Young Americans are often glued to their phones and tablets, and several studies show that it might make them more vulnerable to scammers preying on people online.

Channel 2 Washington Correspondent Samantha Manning spoke to cybersecurity experts about how Gen Z, and other potential scam victims, can protect themselves.

For Gen Z, being on the internet is second nature.

Phones and tablets are used for banking, shopping online, school and work.

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The growing reliance on the internet has meant more online scammers are trying to cash in on unsuspecting users.

Grace Hoyt, a cybersecurity expert for Google, spoke to Channel 2 Action News about online security threats in the current digital age.

“We are finding that it is on the rise and because Gen Z is spending a lot of time online, their threat levels are going up,” Hoyt said.

That means people are losing more money.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation said a record $12.5 billion was lost to cyber scams in 2023, marking a major increase from previous years.

Many of those losses are connected to investment fraud and business email schemes, but a big target for young people are online shopping scams.

“If folks are being rushed into something, maybe a high-value item that’s being claimed that it will be for free but you have to put your credit card information in and they’re being rushed to do so like you only have a few hours,” Hoyt said.

She added that being encouraged to rush and put in credit card information is a major red flag and warned Americans to keep an eye out for typos and odd formats in website links and other URLs.

Hoyt said there are steps you can take to protect your digital data as well.

“We know that these bad actors are looking to get access to passwords and access to folks’ digital accounts. So they’re doing that through scams and phishing. We recommend that everybody use a password manager,” Hoyt said.

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