By Tarun Sharma
Cybercrime has become a permanent menace in the new normal – with technology being misused rampantly and the unwitting populace paying the price. While the impact of cybercrime is being felt by all strata of the society, the elderly are especially at risk of being duped, owing to their lack of awareness about technology and their tendency to trust duplicitous scammers.
The growing elderly population in the country is falling victim to various types of scams, ranging from banking, cyber, and life insurance surrender-related frauds, with reports suggesting that India’s elderly citizens lose about 36 billion dollars to scams and frauds every year, resulting in major losses for themselves and their families.
The Woes of the Elderly
While India is considered the land of the youth, the country is also home to a sizeable elderly populace. In 2021, India’s elderly population, which includes people aged 60 and above, stood at 138 million and this number is seen rising to 194 million by 2031, a surge of 41%, in the ongoing decade. While the country is now capable of offering strong infrastructure and healthcare support to its elderly, a growing percentage of this population lives alone or with minimum social support around them. This lack of support, coupled with low awareness regarding fraud, data privacy, and cybercrime, pushes them into the webs woven by unscrupulous miscreants, resulting in severe financial loss and emotional distress.
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The scenario is further worsened by the rapid proliferation of digital services including online payments, banking and shopping, and, when the vulnerable elderly populace accesses these services in the quest for ease and comfort, they end up becoming victims of fraud. There is a yawning gap in their awareness, when it comes to aspects such as personal data protection and financial fraud, considered mainstays of the technology-savvy youth, and this is the reason behind their susceptibility to cybercrime.
Issues to Grapple With
India is already experiencing a fairly high rate of online fraud, and this, coupled with the resourcefulness of fraudsters, makes it difficult for the elderly to distinguish between miscreants and actual company or government officials. Recently, an elderly businessman from Mumbai was duped of 4.4 crore rupees, under the guise of life insurance policy surrender. He was prompted to transfer money to 27 different bank accounts, between 2021 and 2022, and was promised 7.7 crore rupees in return. The fraudsters provided him fake certificates allegedly stamped by the Reserve Bank of India, the National Payments Corporation of India and the ministry of finance, removing all doubts from his mind.
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In other cases of cybercrime, elderly victims are lured in by fraudulent emails which look extremely similar to the ones issued by safe sites that they frequent, including websites belonging to their banks or the e-commerce sites that they shop from. Such inventiveness on the part of fraudsters, and the innate trust displayed by the elderly, leads the latter to become soft targets for cybercrime.
Protecting the Vulnerable
Given the increasing number of elderly in India, and the rising number of frauds targeted towards them, solid measures need to be taken to staunch the bleed. The first step here is, obviously, building awareness. Talk to the elderly in your family and neighbourhood, and explain to them the stunning prevalence of cybercrime. Since they trust miscreants easily, ask them to communicate with a trustworthy relative or advisor, before they give away personal information.
The next step involves setting up security protocols to help them stay safe, even when they do not have easy access to a trusted resource. This will prevent them from giving away key details.
Finally, remember that the process needs to be repeated multiple times, as this is a new frontier for the elderly. Continue to educate them about cybercrime, with patience and reiterate the common tricks used by scammers, as this will prepare them for the future. Steps like two-step authentication and OTP (one-time passwords) can also offer an additional level of security, ensuring that the elderly stop being soft targets for fraudsters. Alternately, they can sign up for elder care services, which includes financial services, that tend to create the most opportunities for fraud.
