Press Release
GCA teams up with BBB Institute to expand anti-scam resources
BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust and Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today announced a partnership agreement to mutually support and amplify their work. Examples of this include the current engagement and promotion of GCA’s CyberFlex solution to help 18- to 25-year-olds avoid scams and cybercrime and BBB’s Scam Survival Toolkit, which uses trauma-informed design and empathetic language to produce a personalized recovery plan for scam survivors.
Launched in June in collaboration with Amazon, CyberFlex contains targeted information including free tools, interactive guides, and text alerts to prevent, mitigate, report, and recover from scams and other cyber risks. GCA’s solution is helping to raise awareness, shift attitudes about online risks, and provide easy steps to help young adults protect themselves and share their stories.
“We’re thrilled to partner with the Global Cyber Alliance to expand our efforts to provide educational resources for young people, a demographic both organizations find critically important. We know from our research that people of all ages are impacted by scams, including young people. According to the 2023 BBB Scam Tracker Risk Report*, ages 18-24 reported losing more money to scams than any other age group. The CyberFlex platform, designed specifically for ages 18-25, is an important step forward,” explained Melissa Lanning, Executive Director of BBB Institute for Marketplace Trust.
“Our respective missions are significantly aligned in protecting against scams and other cybercrimes. We are glad to promote the Scam Survival Toolkit and have BBB participating in and promoting CyberFlex to help younger people avoid some of the harms that target them online,” said Terry Wilson, GCA’s Global Partnership Director.
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to building communities to deploy tools, services, and programs that provide cybersecurity at global scale. It achieves this in three ways: working with communities; engaging infrastructure owners and operators; and driving ecosystem engagement for collective action on cybersecurity.
BBB Institute for Marketplace TrustSM is the 501(c)(3) educational foundation of the Better Business Bureau®. Its mission is to educate and protect consumers, establish best practices for businesses, and solve complex marketplace problems. It partners with organizations interested in empowering all people, including vulnerable populations, to protect themselves from fraud and to find or become better businesses.
* Each year, BBB Institute publishes the Scam Tracker Risk Report, spotlighting the riskiest scams facing consumers and businesses. According to the 2023 Highlights, for the second year in a row, ages 18-24 reported a higher median dollar loss ($155) than all other age groups. People between the ages of 25 and 34 had the second highest reported median dollar loss ($130).
