Cyber-criminals are targeting more “affluent” individuals to obtain more money, studies have found.<\/p>\n
Like a burglar deciding between a modest house and a luxurious one, they’re apparently choosing the ones that are likely to have more valuables. With the continual rise of malware, criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated and are taking on higher security risks for higher stakes.
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The survey by Creditcards.com used fraud alerts to graph their results and found that 68% of survey participants with \u00a358,000 or more in annual income had received security alerting them of fraud. For participants making between \u00a323,000 to just over \u00a358,000, only 40% received the same alerts. It comes then, to no surprise, that only 23% of participants who earned under \u00a323,000 received the fraud alert.<\/p>\n
The statistics are very similar between annual income and level of education. Around 65% of university graduates received the alert whereas those who attended university in part, and those who didn’t, had decreasing percentages of 49% and 25% respectively.<\/p>\n
As fraudsters target richer individuals, they may turn to the popular trend of ransomware if they can’t directly steal money or information to sell. Knowing that the target has more money, criminals may ransom credit\/debit information for a higher payment demand than if the target has less money.<\/p>\n
Matt Schulz, senior industry analyst for CreditCards.com, made a statement saying: <\/p>\n
“…fraudsters seem to be swimming for the fences, focusing their efforts on high value targets.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He also explained that credit card fraud alerts are more common than alerts for debit cards as <\/p>\n