There’s a dangerous type of social engineering attack that’s going around with a focus on seniors. Seniors tend to 1) have money, and 2) be less quick on their feet to detect maliciousness, so they’re great targets for scammers.

The attack is pretty simple:

1. Find an elderly target who has money
2. Find out who their relatives are who they are likely to care about
3. Call the target (the elderly relative) and tell them that Julie was just hit by a car and needs immediate surgery
4. Ask for thousands of dollars to be put on a credit card (and act like it’s an emergency and they don’t have time to call relatives)

It’s wicked.

So many people just pay outright. They’re panicked. They don’t know what to do. The caller is applying all sorts of pressure.

Ugh.

Try to have conversations with your elderly relatives about scams of all sorts. Deals that come in via email. Phone calls. All of it.

They’re easy targets, and you have to provide some level of immunization through education.