One in five American adults who have encountered online scams have ended up falling for one of them and losing money, according to a new Consumer Reports report.
Scams are now a normal part of nearly everyone’s online experience — and new AI tools are already making them easier to believe and fall for.
Overall, 46% of American adults said they’ve encountered a scam or cyberattack, according to the report from Consumer Reports, Aspen Digital and the Global Cyber Alliance released Tuesday.
Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely to lose money: one-third of Black respondents and 30% of Hispanics said they lost money to a scam, compared with 13% of white Americans.
Consumer Reports fielded part of the report in a survey conducted in April among 2,042 U.S. adults.
About half of the scam attempts Americans experienced started via email (30%) or on social media (23%).
One in five started through a text message or messaging apps like WhatsApp or iMessage.
22% of those who experienced a scam said their social media account was hacked, and 11% said a scammer hacked their email.
27% said a scammer impersonated their bank or credit card company; another 27% said the scammers pretended to be tech support.
People are being bombarded by scammers looking to make a quick buck, especially on social media.
67% of people said they’ve received a friend request on social media from someone they don’t know, and nearly half said they’ve received potentially scammy messages on social media.
A separate Consumer Reports survey conducted in May found that 80% of U.S. adults use some sort of multifactor authentication, up from 76% in last year’s survey.
83% have used text-based login codes, although many security experts warn those can be easily intercepted.
54% use a separate app to get the code, like Google Authenticator.
25% have confirmed their identity using their voice over a phone call.
New AI tools can make it easier for even more Americans to be scammed.
Hackers are using chatbots to perfect the language in their phishing emails so they’re harder to detect.
New AI tools can help scammers create a complete clone of someone’s voice or likeliness.
Consumers reported losing more than $10 billion to fraud in 2023, a 14% increase from the year before, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Someone needs to be distracted for only a brief moment to be tricked into falling for a phishing email, especially one that looks real or seems to come from a legitimate email address.
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