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The rise of AI-powered super-realistic deepfakes and sophisticated phishing attacks has made fraud harder to spot than ever before. As a result, 1 in 7 consumers worldwide fell victim to a scam in the past year, according to Bitdefender’s 2025 Consumer Cybersecurity Survey.
Young digital natives put themselves at extra risk by oversharing sensitive information and personal milestones online, primarily on TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp. As a result, they are more vulnerable to identity theft and twice as likely to fall for scams than older generations (20% vs 9.7%).
As such, it’s no surprise that social media has overtaken email as the top scam delivery channel, as scammers target young people.
Scammers learn new tricks
Rather than trick young people with offers that sound too good to be true, these days the most effective scams are those that seem too mundane to be false.
Extremely convincing delivery, shipping and mail fraud make up 21% of all scams, while innocent-looking phishing attacks and account takeovers account for another 19%.
Meanwhile, “offer of a lifetime” marketing, employment, crypto investment and romance scams each only account for less than 10%.
Heavy reliance on smartphones increases the threats that young people face. While 53% of consumers use mainly their personal phones for transactions, especially digital natives, almost as many (48%) don’t use a dedicated mobile security solution.
People also struggle with safe password management; 37% of people still write passwords down, while only 27% use a password manager. At the same time, 17% of people unwisely reuse the same password across three or more accounts.
Stay safe with Bitdefender
Part of the problem is that people are overconfident when it comes to their ability to sniff out a scam. Nearly three quarters of adults globally feel confident in their ability to recognise a scam, with 93% of them claiming to take at least one step to verify whether or not an offer is legitimate, according to the Global Anti-Scams Alliance’s Global State of Scams 2025 report.
Unfortunately, people often rely on methods which are becoming increasingly ineffective, such as checking for spelling and grammar errors, looking for reviews on the same website or checking if the company is on social media.
This is where a robust suite of security tools like Bitdefender Premium Security adds extra layers of defence to keep scammers at bay. Along with antivirus, malware and ransomware protection, Bitdefender protects you against insidious scams which are difficult to spot with the naked eye.
Ask Scamio Pro
Fighting fire with fire, Bitdefender’s Scamio Pro specialised AI assistant helps you identify suspicious online interactions.The easy-to-use Scamio Pro AI chatbot is your personal scam-busting assistant, available on the web as well as inside WhatsApp, Messenger and Discord.
Looking far beyond email and the web, Scamio Pro helps young people defend against online threats from any direction. You can simply describe suspicious activity to Scamio, or else share a text, link, image, email, social media message or QR code for Scamio to double-check.
Scamio Pro looks for the subtle telltale signs of a scam, breaking down key elements like sender information, message structure and language patterns. It also checks Bitdefender’s vast database of known scams and phishing attempts.
If Scamio Pro finds a match with a known scam, or simply notifies something suspicious, it warns you that scammers have you in their sights. Meanwhile, Scam Wave Alert proactively informs you about scam outbreaks in your region to keep you one step ahead of the bad guys.
Bitdefender’s AI-powered tools can also detect scams and dangerous links in SMS messages on smartphones. Android users have the added protection of detecting scams in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram and Discord chats.
On the desktop, email protection monitors web mailboxes from Gmail and Outlook 24/7, along with local email clients on Windows, and marks every incoming email as safe or unsafe.
Meanwhile, the Bitdefender SecurePass password manager is available on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. It simplifies your life by memorising hundreds of passwords, all protected by a single master password.
The security and convenience of a password manager removes the temptation to use weak passwords, or reuse passwords across multiple services.
SecurePass gives you the option to autofill online forms and can even recommend secure passwords. It can also store credit card information and other sensitive data in a digital vault for easy access whenever you need it.
For an extra level of protection, you can even bank and shop from a unique, dedicated browser that secures your transactions to prevent fraud.
Find out more
As fraudsters target digital natives on social media, young people can’t rely on gut instinct alone to know when they’re being scanned. The backing of a smart security suite is the key to spotting a scam before it’s too late.
Protect yourself with Bitdefender Premium Security. You can try the free 30-day trial here, to see for yourself just how simple and effective good online protection can be.