Scams: Most people worried about pensioners falling victim but also admit to ‘oversharing’ online, Avast finds

Most people still can't resist clicking suspicious links, despite frequently warning others not to do so, an anti-scam survey found. Photo / Jason Dorday

Senior citizens often reluctant to change bad habits are making themselves vulnerable to increasingly sleek scams, cyber security group Avast says.

The Avast Safe Tech Report, released today, found 46% of New Zealand respondents believed ageing loved ones had already fallen victim to online threats.

Stephen Kho, Avast’s director of offensive security, said older people were big users of SMS texts, email, voicemail, Facebook and Facebook Marketplace, all of which scammers were targeting.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was presenting new risks but old-fashioned tricks such as anti-virus scams were still flourishing, he said.

“Those are kind of old attacks, but unfortunately, they’re affecting our population, because inherently, the older population or generation are more trusting, less suspicious, less paranoid.”

Kho told the Herald that previously foolproof ways of detecting many scams no longer applied as AI made gains.

“Years ago it was: okay, look for bad spelling, bad grammar, bad English.”

But he said family discussions could break down some scam stigmas and make people less susceptible.

“The survey really points to the fact that whilst we are worried about them being scammed, we’re probably not doing enough.”

The Avast report found 44% of Kiwis reported older loved ones still wrote passwords on a piece of paper and 84% of Kiwis have warned their older loved ones about online scams.

“But only 53% actually change their habits,” the Avast Safe Tech Report added.

People often got defensive when queried about scam awareness and cyber security, Kho said.

“So if you point out a grandparent to say: hey, you’re not using your password manager, you need to stop writing your passwords on this notebook next to you, they might say: ‘I’ve done this for 20 years, you know, what’s wrong with that?’”

The use of AI has made detection harder, so awareness and and sharing of anti-scam techniques needed to step up, Kho added.

The Avast survey found 74% of respondents were concerned older loved ones could fall victim to an online scam.

“This concern speaks to the perceived vulnerability of older adults and the increasing importance of family involvement in online safety.”

But it seems many people don’t practice what they preach.

Of all respondents, 73% admitted to clicking on suspicious links, while 59% said they answered calls from unknown numbers and 54% said they overshared personal information.

That was despite 91% of Kiwi respondents saying they’d warned older loved ones about risky online behaviour, especially clicking suspicious links.

Avast said the most common scams targeting older adults were tech support scams, phishing, and fake invoice scams.

Romance scams were still a lingering problem, the report added, and phone calls were still one of the most common entry points for fraud and identity theft.

Avast said the study was conducted online in New Zealand by Dynata on behalf of cyber security firm Gen from April 24 to May 8 among 1001 adults.

John Weekes is a business journalist mostly covering aviation and courts. He previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.