They told us grandma would fall for the “Nigerian prince.”
Turns out, it’s her grandson clicking on phishing links while juggling five side hustles and a Tinder match.
Yes, really. Welcome to the upside-down world of cybersecurity in 2025, where the most tech-savvy generation is also the most hackable.
Young, Broke, and Breached
Let’s smash the stereotype: the idea that older generations are more vulnerable to cyberattacks because they’re “bad with tech” is, statistically, a delusion.
- Baby Boomers: 41% say they’ve never been hacked.
- Gen Z: Only 20% can say the same, despite having lived fewer years on the internet.
Deloitte, Cint, CyberArk, NordVPN, Kaspersky... name a cybersecurity firm, and they’re screaming the same message:
Young people are falling for scams twice as often. Sometimes more.
And if you're a CEO running a small business in the Netherlands, hiring freelancers, or managing a digital-first team, that risk belongs to you too.
“Digital Native” ≠ “Digitally Safe”
Gen Z has never known a world without the internet. They multitask across Instagram, Slack, Zoom, Figma, and God-knows-what in a single afternoon.
But that fluency comes at a cost:
- Faster click reflexes → Less critical thinking
- Password reuse → Easier credential leaks
- Work on personal devices → No perimeter, no firewall
- Trust in familiar platforms → Perfect bait for phishing campaigns
Anne Cutler at Keeper Security puts it simply:
“They were born with iPads. And with trust.”
Attackers love trust.
The Cyber Risk of Hustle Culture
When you’re working four jobs to afford rent in Amersfoort, things get messy:
- More accounts
- More SaaS logins
- More mental fatigue
- More attack surface
Kaspersky calls it “cognitive overload.” We call it a perfect storm.
From file sharing to phishing, from accidental leaks to shadow IT, every click has a cost when your mind is fragmented across gigs.
You’re not just exposing yourself, you're dragging your employer down with you.
The Real-Life Threat of Shadow IT
Let’s say you're a CEO who lets your team freelance on the side. Sounds modern. Feels agile.
But now they’ve installed a Chrome extension to manage side clients. That extension phones home to a foreign server. Boom: your IP, your emails, your backend code, all on the wrong radar.
The term is “shadow IT” and no, it’s not a cool hacker alias. It’s what happens when workers go rogue with apps that haven’t been vetted, secured, or even noticed by your IT, or worse, you don’t even have one.
From Scam to Breach in Three Easy Steps
- A fake freelance gig messages your team member on Telegram.
- They click a link, send a CV, maybe download a “job brief” PDF.
- Malware enters. Credentials leak.
- Wait... were those the same credentials used for your shared Dropbox?
Congrats. Your whole SME just got punk’d.
And if you're operating under remote-first rules, WFH setups, or BYOD policies, guess what?
You’ve just made it open bar for cybercriminals.
Xtroverso’s Verdict: Stop Sleeping on Youth Risk
Here's the wake-up call we promised.
Young freelancers, digital nomads, hybrid juniors, they’re not your weakest employees.
But they are your biggest blind spot if you don’t have real governance around their tech behavior.
- Assuming they “know tech” is not protection.
- Training, credential vaults, endpoint monitoring, platform access rules—that's how you contain risk.
And don’t forget the human part: burnout, job stress, financial strain. These aren’t just HR topics. They’re risk factors.
Action Plan (For Real Entrepreneurs)
If you’re a CEO of a micro or small enterprise in NL, here’s what you do today:
- Map accounts and devices per team member, yes, even freelancers.
- Ban password reuse like you ban bad coffee.
- Create a ZENTRIQ™-level access policy: who can access what, from where, and using which tool.
- Educate without boring them to death: phishing isn’t theory, it’s daily.
- Audit your team’s shadow IT: extensions, SaaS logins, platforms.
Remember:
The risk isn’t the person.
The risk is what that person connects to and what they connect you to.
In a connected world, governance isn’t a luxury. It’s a line between control and collapse.
So next time you see your intern with ten tabs open, Spotify blaring, and Slack notifications pinging while uploading a “pitch deck” from WeTransfer...
Ask yourself: is this cyber resilience, or Russian roulette?