Three Takeaways from Marti DeLiema, 2026 Cybersecurity Presenter – Aging and Retirement Security

When a colleague shared the Freakonomics episode, Here’s Why You are Constantly Fighting Off Scammers, with the Cybersecurity Summit Planning team, and we heard Marti DeLiema discuss scams as a sophisticated, data-driven industry rather than isolated incidents of bad luck or gullibility, we knew we had to invite her to speak at this year’s Summit.

In the closing session of the 2026 Cybersecurity Summit, Marti DeLiema, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, brought a researcher’s perspective on the factors that can make older adults more vulnerable to financial fraud why they tend to lose more money per incident than other age groups and what cybersecurity professionals (and all of us) can do to protect retirement resources.

Here are three main takeaways from DeLiema’s session: Aging and Retirement Security.

One: The Scale of the Problem

Financial fraud takes a disproportionate toll on older Americans, with median losses climbing steadily by age, from just $250 for victims in their 20s to a striking $1,650 for those 80 and older, according to FTC data highlighted by DeLiema.

Compounding the problem is a shift in how scammers extract money: bank transfers and cryptocurrency have emerged as the costliest payment methods used in fraud, with crypto-related losses exploding more than tenfold in just four years, from $131.6 million in 2020 to roughly $1.4 billion in 2024. As digital currencies become easier to access and harder to trace or recover, they’re increasingly the vehicle of choice for scammers targeting older adults’ retirement savings.

Two: Exploiting Emotional States

A person’s own habits matter more than age or demographics when it comes to fraud risk. A study of known mail fraud victims found that engaging in “risky activities” — entering sweepstakes drawings, opening all mail, not hanging up on telemarketers, answering unknown calls, and buying lottery or scratch-off tickets — was significantly more predictive of fraud victimization than any demographic factor like income or education.

Scammers also deliberately exploit emotional states to lower people’s guards. In a lab experiment, DeLiema found that inducing excitement or anger increased older adults’ (though notably not younger adults’) stated likelihood of purchasing from fraudulent ads, regardless of how credible the ad actually seemed to them. This ties directly into the broader persuasion playbook scammers rely on, which includes manufacturing urgency, dangling “phantom riches” to spark fantasies of wealth, projecting false authority or credibility, isolating targets from anyone who might intervene, and framing the interaction as private and confidential — all tactics designed to short-circuit careful decision-making in favor of fast, emotionally driven action.

The trauma of being a victim of fraud can result in shame and depression, not just for older people, but for everyone. Often victims don’t want other people to find it that it has happened, because they feel like it will reflect negatively on them, and that people will look at them as being incompetent. They will repress their feelings and often will not report the scam.

Three: How to Talk with Aging Loved Ones

When asked by attendees how to approach aging loved ones about this topic, DeLiema encouraged starting the conversation from a place of openness and planning rather than fear. 

“Having a conversation about financial decisions and cognitive decline can be really triggering for older adults. What we found in our kind of market research, through focus groups with older adults, is that they preferred talking about money and coming up with a financial contingency plan as something that you want to have for ‘peace of mind.’”

These discussions with aging loved ones are rarely a one-time event, but instead “happen over months,” giving families time to build trust and develop a plan together. She referred to the free Thinking Ahead Roadmap resource that she and organizations helped create as a resource for conversations. 