"A Third of UK University Students Targeted By Fraud"

Security researchers at NatWest discovered that one in three students at British universities encountered fraud attempts online last year. The researchers polled over 3000 UK university students from 63 towns and cities back in May. The most common fraud attempts the researchers came across over the period were delivery scams, which 14% of respondents said they'd seen. The researchers noted that these are effectively phishing emails impersonating a well-known courier brand. They claim the recipient has a parcel waiting but needs to click through and enter their personal details, sometimes including financial information, to reschedule the delivery. The researchers stated that social media and HMRC tax scams were also frequently encountered by respondents. However, fraud relating to high street banks appeared to drop from 2022 figures, hitting just 10% of those polled for the study. The researchers said women were "slightly more likely" to have encountered a scam in the past 12 months and were over twice as likely to lose money than men. The average amount lost by victims of fraud was around $102. Students living in Bournemouth were most likely to have been hit by scams, with 44% of respondents living in the south coast city saying they had encountered fraud over the previous year. Next came Edinburgh and Oxford. Students in Bristol and Leicester were least likely to be on the receiving end of a fraud attempt (25%).

Infosecurity reports: "A Third of UK University Students Targeted By Fraud"