Digital dangers aren\u2019t just annoying; they\u2019re costing Americans billions. <\/p>\n
The latest numbers reveal that cyber criminals stole more than $16 billion last year, and nearly 6.5 million people reported fraud or identity theft, which is about one victim every five seconds. <\/p>\n
And more than half of adults say they\u2019ve been targeted by a scam through email, text or phone.<\/p>\n
Experts say this is now crime without contact!<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople mostly need to realize that everything you do is being tracked,\u201d said James Thompson, president, CEO and founder of Tech Bay, USA.<\/p>\n
Scammers can use artificial intelligence to clone a person\u2019s voice from just seconds of audio posted online.<\/p>\n
And did you realize your address, phone number, relatives, even property details, can be bought online through data broker sites? That\u2019s how scams sound so personal.<\/p>\n
Experts recommend families create a private safe word to verify real emergencies. <\/p>\n
And privacy experts say freezing your credit is one of the strongest defenses. It stops new accounts from being opened in your name. <\/p>\n
Another growing risk: property fraud. Criminals can file fake documents trying to transfer ownership of a home digitally. Sign up for free property fraud alerts through your county clerk\u2019s office. A tool many people don\u2019t even know exists.<\/p>\n
Even those innocent posts, birthdays, kids\u2019 photos, pet names, vacation shots, can give scammers the answers to your security questions. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s why experts say to treat security questions like passwords, don\u2019t use real answers. And remember, the safest people online aren\u2019t the most tech-savvy, they\u2019re the most skeptical.<\/p>\n
Your Smart TV, doorbell camera, speaker, and fitness watch all collect data. Many devices default to sharing usage data with companies.<\/p>\n
Experts say go into your device settings and turn off \u201cad personalization\u201d and \u201cdata sharing,\u201d settings most people have never checked.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by Ivanhoe Newswire – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Digital dangers aren\u2019t just annoying; they\u2019re costing Americans billions. The latest numbers reveal that cyber criminals stole more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,2134,3842,3841,3843,3844,781],"class_list":{"0":"post-4042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ai","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-consumer","11":"tag-money","12":"tag-morning-show","13":"tag-scam-alert","14":"tag-scams","15":"tag-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}