Hackers , or hackers, examine the structure and the way certain programs work to detect cracks in them and find opportunities to infect computers.

In the same way, people who develop strategies to defraud others through the Internet (and from the comfort of their home) have to put themselves in the shoes of the person they want to defraud and detect the corners where their way of making decisions leaves unprotected sides for which to introduce the deception.

Are we vulnerable to Internet scams?

And the truth is that, as ridiculous as these scams may seem to some people, they have their “public” of poor Internet users who end up giving out their bank details without them knowing they are falling into a scam . Furthermore, there are people who, depending on the context and how they find themselves, could be victims of these scams at a certain moment and easily detect them in others.

This is at least one of the conclusions reached in a study conducted by AARP and published in a report called Caught in the Scammer’s Net. This document explains the risk factors that could make us victims of online fraud, and many of them are surprising.

The weight of emotions

Traditionally we have thought that decision making is basically influenced by rational arguments. Thus, for example, deciding whether or not it is worthwhile to click on a link that has come to us through an e-mail would be based on evaluating the pros and cons of that action, estimating the risks, and the value placed on the possible usefulness of doing that action.

However, the AARP study shows that the emotional state in which people find themselves when exposed to internet scams is incredibly relevant. People who have just gone through a highly stressful experience , such as being fired from their job or suddenly losing their purchasing power, are significantly more likely to fall into these scams . Similarly, individuals with feelings of isolation and loneliness also fall more easily into these traps.

Similarly, the simple fact of being a more impulsive person with a tendency to carry out risky activities also predisposes us to fall into the online scam.

The explanation for this could be that staying in certain emotional states acts as a distraction that makes you “drop your guard” and pay less attention to relevant information. Thus, non-rational factors would be making it more likely to choose one option than the other, regardless of whether on rational grounds it is more or less attractive. This, by the way, occurs even in the choice of partner.

The “easy prey” profile

Beyond the situational factors, there are also certain personal characteristics that make some profiles especially prone to sneak into this type of deception . For example, people who tend to sign up to use products to try out the evaluation version that lasts a few days are easy prey, and the same goes for those who are more likely to share their birthday and relationship status on social networks like Facebook (specifically, they are 8% more likely to be cheated).

In turn, people who are predisposed to clicking on pop-ups (the little windows that open while surfing the internet to advertise things) have a 16% greater risk of becoming victims of online scams.

The wisdom of the digital generation

It should be noted that these percentages do not indicate the potential danger of clicking on pop-ups or posting personal data on Facebook per se, but rather simply explains factors that predict the risk of falling into the online scam . Although all clickable pop-ups are harmless, clicking on them indicates that when the opportunity to fall into an online scam arises, you are more likely to fall into it.

That means that there is a part of the population that surfs the Internet with a certain level of alert and that is not exposed to this type of risk, while other people are more confident in this sense or simply lack information about the online actions that are safe and those that can be dangerous.

That’s why the simple fact of knowing certain basic internet rules makes it much less likely to take the bait for the online scam . People who know or are aware of the privacy policies of a website or service, for example, are less likely to be misled, and the same goes for those who know that banks never send links to forms to be filled out to “verify” personal information.

The experience of surfing the Internet also plays a role. Among the people who volunteered for the research, those who have started using the Internet most recently were those who fell for the Nigerian prince’s scam of writing us a large amount of money, while the rest of the users deleted that e-mail.