In fact, social media has become the number one most profitable method for scammers to scam. That’s almost three times more than 2020, when they stole $258 million. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), social media scammers stole a total of $770 million from Americans in 2021. It’s not your imagination - social media scams really are on the rise. Unlike hacking, phishing does not require advanced tech skills. Importantly, phishing relies on the victim trusting the scammer and taking an action - like clicking a link or sending bank account information - in order for the scammer to get what they want. a tech support scam) but they always utilize some form of electronic communication to trick and defraud people. a message with a link saying “look who died”) or complex (i.e.

Phishing, on the other hand, is a social engineering technique that manipulates people into voluntarily giving up sensitive information. Regardless of intent, hacking requires a deep knowledge of technology and excellent programming skills. Hacking is defined as “the application of technology or technical knowledge to overcome some sort of problem or obstacle.” Hackers can have good intentions (like the ones we work with here at Avast) or they can have criminal intentions (like the ones who broke into Facebook in 2018). She was phished, which is a different type of cyber crime. Is everyone actually getting hacked?įirst things first: Your aunt wasn’t hacked.

The short answer is: Every day people are easy and cheap targets for cyber criminals. So what’s the deal? Why are your aunt and your favorite podcaster and that girl you went to high school with suddenly getting hacked? Isn’t that something that used to only happen to celebrities? Or maybe you’ve seen post after post on your timeline of someone saying something like, “Sorry everyone, I got hacked!” Maybe your least tech-y friend is suddenly talking about crypto on Instagram. Maybe you’ve gotten a weird Facebook message from someone you hadn’t spoken with in a while. If your social media networks are anything like mine, you’ve noticed an uptick in people getting “hacked” lately. Generally, the trust children have in the news, social media interactions, and politicians being reliable sources is weakening.Social media scams are just one of the many ways cyber criminals are taking advantage of people online these days. Teachers surveyed on the matter noted a real increase in issues of anxiety, self-esteem, and a general skewing of world views. Half of the children asked, admitted being worried about fake news. And while only a third believe that social media stories are truthful, it is estimated that only 2% of school children have the basic critical literacy skills to tell the difference between real and fake news. This presents a real concern about the impact of fake news on our children and young people.Īccording to the National Literacy Trust Fake News and Critical Literacy Report more than half of 12-15 year-olds go to social media as their regular source of news. When we start to believe that there is the possibility that anything can be fake, it’s easier to discount what is actually true. Exposure to misinformation can reduce trust in the media more broadly, making it tougher to know what fact or fiction in the future is.

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