More than half of people say they're being hit with attempted scams every day in a dispiriting "onslaught" that is making it tougher to tell fake messages from genuine, research shows. — Photo: Bernd Diekjobst/dpa
LOS ANGELES: Owning a mobile phone is increasingly troublesome and irritating as dangerous scams and spam become ever more prevalent, according to new survey results from Malwarebytes.
The internet security company found more than half the people asked complain they are hit with attempted scams every day in a dispiriting "onslaught" that is making it tougher to tell fake messages from genuine and to which one in four phone users appear to have surrendered.
"Phishing texts arrive from endless new phone numbers, deepfake extortion threats upend lives, and scams everywhere now mimic routine interactions – hiding behind QR codes, imposter websites, and even high-ranking Google ads," Malwarebytes warned, publishing findings that will likely resonate with many smartphone users.
The survey, which was carried out in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the US, indicated that users' "everyday habits" leave them more vulnerable to attack as almost all "trade data for deals" and for what looks at first glance to be convenience, handing over personal data to applications and granting permissions for deep-reaching access to devices.
And while almost eight out of ten people asked said they worry about such risks, around 25% of say they no longer care, seeing scams as "an inevitable cost of being online."
Financial loss, fraud, account and device lockout, identity theft and privacy leaks were among the risks people said they worried about while using their devices - threats that are likely to get worse as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used.
"Malicious texts pose as package delivery notifications, phishing emails impersonate trusted brands and unknown calls hide extortion attempts, virtual kidnapping schemes," Malwarebytes said.
The survey authors warned that "routine phone habits" such as clicking tracking links and comparing prices "open the door to fraud," with younger phone-addicted age groups such as Generation Z and millennials more likely to click though on phones than others or those who use computers regularly. – dpa
