August 3, 2025
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The grandparent scam may sound quaint in an era dominated by ransomware, AI deepfakes, and billion-dollar data breaches. But this socially engineered con is not only still active, it’s thriving, and it’s emblematic of a deeper problem in how our society views cybersecurity: as a technical issue, not a cultural one.
At Cyber Intel Training, we believe cybersecurity starts with awareness, not just systems. And what law enforcement professionals are witnessing on the front lines of fraud makes it clear: until we embed cyber awareness into our cultural norms, the most vulnerable among us will continue to be the most exploited.
The scam works like this: a senior receives a phone call, often in the middle of the night. A voice claims to be their grandchild, or a lawyer or police officer, announcing an urgent crisis. An accident. An arrest. A need for bail money.
Sometimes the scammer knows the grandchild’s name, their city, or personal context scraped from public records or social media. In advanced cases, a courier is sent directly to the victim’s home to collect the money.
The emotional manipulation is deliberate. It’s urgent. It's disorienting.
And it works.
The results are catastrophic. Victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many never report it, consumed by shame, regret, and a belief that “they should have known better.”
One of the most painful insights shared by law enforcement is that victims often suffer in silence. Not just because of financial loss, but because of pride. The emotional aftermath, feeling foolish, deceived, and isolated, is often worse than the crime itself.
This emotional wound is where fraudsters thrive.
We cannot fix this with firewalls, fraud alerts, or even stricter regulations alone. We have to tackle the cultural stigma that equates being scammed with being incompetent. As one officer noted, “These aren’t gullible people. They’re human beings responding to an emergency.”
Police services in both Ireland and Canada are grappling with how to respond to these crimes at scale. With fraud reports rising and cybercriminals hiding behind international networks and spoofed identities, traditional investigative approaches are stretched thin.
And yet, law enforcement is evolving. They're:
Still, one reality remains: they can’t do it alone.
What the grandparent scam reveals is not a failure of tech, but a failure of communication and education.
People didn’t fall for the scam because they didn’t have antivirus software.
They fell for it because they didn’t expect criminals to sound like their grandchildren.
That’s why we need a cultural shift in how we approach cybersecurity:
Every person, not just employees, needs foundational training in how manipulation works online and over the phone. This includes emotional triggers, urgency cues, and psychological tactics.
Victims should be praised for coming forward, not shamed into silence. Reporting should be easy, empathetic, and encouraged, even if it's "just a suspicion."
From bank tellers to postal workers to retirement home staff, those who interact with potential victims must be trained to spot red flags and escalate concerns.
Security messaging should appear on phones, ATMs, smart TVs, and service desks, not just corporate intranets. If scams are everywhere, our awareness should be too.
What makes the grandparent scam so effective is also what makes us human, our desire to protect loved ones, our trust in familiar voices, our instinct to act quickly in a crisis.
These instincts don’t make us weak. They make us vulnerable. And vulnerability is exactly what criminals exploit.
At Cyber Intel Training, our mission is to build more than just secure networks, we aim to help organizations and communities build resilient, aware, and empowered people.
Because in today’s world, everyone is part of the cybersecurity team, whether they know it yet or not.
Daniel Wilson
Cyber Intel Training
Practical training for a safer, smarter, more cyber-aware society.
