Fraudsters target the elderly: Behavioural evidence from randomised controlled scam-baiting experiments

Email-based fraud is a lucrative market for cybercriminals to scam a wide range of potential victims. Yet there is a sometimes conflicted literature on who these victims are, complicated by low and possibly confounded reporting rates. We make use of an experimental automated scam-baiting platform to test hypotheses about the characteristics online fraudsters find more attractive, gathering behavioural evidence directly from the fraudsters themselves (n = 296). In our comparison of four instrumented ‘personalities’ designed based on traits highlighted in the literature and in a small public perception survey, we find that a script adopting the personality of an elderly woman attracts significantly more engagement from scammers than our control measure. We discuss our approach and the possible interpretations and implications of our findings.