80% Indians Faced Tech Support Scam, 22% Lost Money
By Prempal Singh
80% of folks in India have experienced a tech support scam, 32% continued with the scam and 22% of them suffered losses, a new survey revealed on Wednesday.
The survey by Microsoft company and marketing consultant Ipsos Public Affairs found that globally, two out of three people surveyed have experienced a tech support scam.
“One out of 5 was tricked into continued engagement with scammers usually, often leading to affected individuals losing a huge selection of dollars to the fraudsters, ” observed by the survey which was conducted as part of Cybersecurity Awareness Month in 12 countries with practically 1, 000 people from each country.
“Traditionally, scammers usually made unsolicited phone calls to potential victims but today, they are progressively moving online, using email messages, websites and pop-up windows to scare people into engaging, ” the results highlighted.
With new techniques, scammers are not only reaching a larger part of the population but also targeting new consumers.
The survey highlighted that adults older than fifty-five are no longer the most vulnerable and millennials (between ages 18-34) are outpacing them because of their inherent trust in, and use of, technology.
“Since millennials are usually less suspicious of technology attacks, they are more likely to accept and have interaction in the rip-off, not realizing their problem until it finally is too late and the cybercriminals have gained access to their devices and personal information, ” the study pointed out.
After having a successful year-long pilot, Microsoft India launched a full-scale (CSEC) Cybersecurity Engagement Centre in India.
Source: news18