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A professor weighs in on how to avoid online scams: Part 1

Pete Linforth
/
Pixabay

What kinds of scams are there?

For cybercriminals, stealing your personal information and money through online scams has become big business.

The growth of social media use has resulted in even more scams, according to recent reports given to the Federal Trade Commission. More than one in four people who reported losing money to fraud in 2021 said it started on social media with an ad, a post or a message.

In 2021, more than 95,000 people reported about $770 million in losses to fraud from social media platforms. Those losses account for about 25% of all reported losses to fraud in 2021 and represent an eighteen-fold increase over 2017 reported losses.

Dr. Xiang Guo, assistant professor in the Department of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at Missouri State University, sheds more light about online scams.

Read the full audio transcript

A native of Malaysia, Emily moved to Springfield in 2010 and started working at Missouri State University in 2014. She’s currently the assistant director in the Office of Strategic Communication. She has a BA in Mass Communications from Colorado State University-Pueblo and a Master of Journalism from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
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