 TITLE: How to Prevent Senior Identity Theft CONTENT: Why Elderly Citizens Are Vulnerable to Identity Theft\n-----------------------------------------------------\nWhile data breaches and other financial scams have exposed millions in the U.S. to identity fraud, senior citizens are often a favorite target of scam artists. There are several reasons for this. Many older Americans are at a point in their lives when they have an impressive nest egg of savings and investments, and many have also begun accessing their retirement funds. At the same time, they are spending more time in medical offices and using more government services, two industries that are highly targeted by cybercriminals, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. And that means their personal information is more at risk of compromise in a data breach.\nMost important from a fraudster's point of view, the aging process makes seniors more vulnerable than other age groups. Some severe changes that accompany the aging process, such as the onset of dementia, directly impact the ability to make good decisions. But senior citizens are also more likely to be isolated, if they are widowed or less mobile due to health reasons, for example, and this can be a factor in how they react to scams. Some seniors may respond to the emotion of the situation—worry for a \"kidnapped\" grandchild, fear of arrest by the IRS, attention from someone they met online—and without a strong support system that can provide reality checks, they can be lured in by fraud. END