As a cybersecurity educator, I’m used to being the unofficial IT support for my friends, family and neighbors. Forgotten passwords, suspicious emails, how-to’s – I’m the person they turn to because I “know about computers.”

So when I received a text from one of my neighbors, a woman in her early 70s, saying she had been scammed, I did not immediately think the worst. I texted her with the usual advice: Change your passwords, contact your financial institution, file an identity theft report, and perhaps make a police report if the situation was serious.

Then she replied: “I think you better come down here and let’s talk.”

When I arrived at her house, I immediately knew this was different. She greeted me with a mixture of embarrassment, shame, fear and confusion. Over the next hour, she frantically told me how a series of events over the course of three days had resulted in scammers stealing approximately US$100,000 from her.

Her ordeal began when she discovered that she was locked out of her bank account. Naturally, she called her bank for help. During the process, she believed she was transferred to technical support, but somewhere along the way she ended up communicating with scammers.

Then another crisis appeared. Her computer displayed an alarming warning claiming that the computer was being hacked and that she needed to contact Microsoft immediately. The scammers effectively isolated her and persuaded her not to communicate with anyone who might have interrupted the scheme. They convinced her that her money was in danger and instructed her to move it into cryptocurrency, supposedly to protect her assets from being stolen or seized.

Unfortunately, that money was now long gone.

The scope of the problem

Before this incident, I understood that........

© The Conversation