Scammers are now routinely targeting more than three-quarters of Irish adults with bogus text messages, emails, phone calls or online content every month, according to research published Monday.
The study from the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) under its FraudSMART umbrella also suggests that the level of scams is on the rise, and warns that the deployment of generative AI technology has the potential to “supercharge” fraudulent activity.
The research has been published as part of an awareness initiative See the Scam behind the Screen aimed at highlighting the rise in and dangers of social engineering tactics which underpin the majority of scams and are increasingly being used by criminals to groom or manipulate victims into transferring money or divulging personal and financial details.
The main channel for scam communications is the mobile phone with 58 per cent of those surveyed saying they had encountered scam text messages, while 52 per cent said they had been targeted by scam calls.
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Despite the proliferation of scam messages just over half of mobile phone users are taking prevention measures including blocking suspicious numbers and ignoring unsolicited phone calls or messages/calls from unrecognised numbers.
And when asked about clicking on links in text messages, social media or instant messenger, only 53 per cent reported proactively never clicking on such links.
Only 32 per cent said they checked for the ‘https’ at the beginning of web addresses, while just 27 per cent said they used secured internet rather than public wifi, with a similar percentage saying they checked for padlock images at the beginning of the web address when making purchases online
Niamh Davenport of the BPFI noted the increasing volume of fraudsters deploying social engineering, and said it was “evident that there is still a distance to travel in ensuring we are all fully alert to and taking the key preventive steps necessary in order to protect ourselves”.
She said social engineering tactics were playing on “human emotions such as trust, fear or sympathy, tricking the victim into believing they are communicating with a legitimate source”.
She also pointed to “the rapid growth of generative AI technology which has the potential to supercharge financial fraud and social engineering through the creation of different types of convincing content”.
