Summary

Older adults are increasingly exposed to cyber-attacks as everyday activities such as banking, communication, and access to services move online. Fraudsters often exploit trust, authority cues, and emotional pressure through highly personalised social engineering attacks, which can lead to significant financial and emotional harm. Existing cyber safety guidance is frequently generic, text heavy, and not well suited to the needs, confidence levels, or lived experiences of older adults.

The EVERESTS project explored how AI driven, human centred approaches could support older adults’ cyber safety through personalised and emotionally supportive guidance. The project investigated how publicly available cyber threat information could be curated and contextualised to inform accessible safety advice delivered through a digital companion. Drawing on cyber security research alongside ongoing interviews and co design activities with older adults and practitioners, EVERESTS prioritises reduced cognitive load, emotionally safe explanations, and autonomy enhancing interactions rather than fear based messaging. The project establishes foundations for future research into trusted, accessible cyber safety interventions for vulnerable user groups.

Objectives

The project objectives were to:

1. Examine how publicly available cyber‑threat data could inform personalised safety guidance for older adults.

2. Develop a conceptual and architectural model for an AI‑driven cyber safety companion.

3. Engage older adults and practitioners to inform initial system requirements using interviews and early co‑design methods.

4. Iteratively design and develop a prototype of the EVERESTS Digital Safety Companion.Build interdisciplinary capacity for future external funding and collaborative research.

As the project progressed, emphasis was refined to strengthen the human‑centred and behavioural aspects of cyber safety rather than focusing solely on technical threat detection.

Activities

Key activities undertaken during the project include:

1. Review of Cyber Threat Landscapes

   A review of current cyber threat trends, with particular attention to fraud and social engineering attacks affecting older adults and gaps in existing awareness approaches.

2. Architecture and System Design Exploration

   Development of a modular system architecture integrating publicly available information sources, threat curation, contextual risk assessment, and AI‑driven personalisation.

3. Human‑Centred Design Activities

   Ongoing interviews with older adults and practitioners, alongside early co‑design planning, to inform design principles around trust, accessibility, emotional safety, and usability.

4. Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Preparation

   Preparation of abstracts and posters for dissemination within the UK cyber security research community.

Outputs

Outputs from the project include:

• A conceptual system architecture for an AI‑driven cyber safety companion.

• Defined user journeys supporting scam detection and everyday behaviour support.

• Early design artefacts and system diagrams used to support discussion and refinement.

• An extended poster abstract describing EVERESTS was accepted to the ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services (MobiSys 2026) Posters track.

• Abstracts submitted for international and national research dissemination events.

• Co‑design protocols and materials to support continued engagement with older adults.

• Foundations for future funding proposals and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Some outputs are ongoing and will be reported in future updates as they mature.

Impact

At this stage, EVERESTS has primarily generated conceptual and capacity‑building impact, with potential for longer‑term benefits.

1. Social: The project highlights the importance of emotionally safe; confidence‑building cyber‑safety support for older adults and contributes to understanding how design choices influence trust and engagement.

2. Organisational: EVERESTS provides a model for embedding human‑centred AI approaches within cyber security research and practice.

3. Policy and sector: The work contributes to discussions around ethical AI, digital inclusion, and the needs of vulnerable populations within cyber‑security policy contexts.

4. Research: The project strengthens interdisciplinary collaboration across cyber security, human‑computer interaction, and behavioural science, informing future applied research.

Early peer feedback from the mobile systems research community has further validated the project’s focus on usability, trust, and explainable safety support for older adults, helping shape priorities for future evaluative work.

Future work will focus on translating these early insights into functional prototypes and evaluative studies.

Future work

Planned follow‑on activities include:

1. Completion of ongoing interviews and co‑design workshops with older adults and practitioners.

2. Development of a functional prototype informed by the EVERESTS architecture.

3. Expanded engagement with third‑sector, public‑sector, and industry stakeholders.

4. Preparation and submission of external research funding bids:

   - Submitted an initial (outline) bid to the Nuffield Foundation Strategic Fund titled “ResilAge: Empowering Older Adults to Stay Safe in the Digital World.”

   - SALIENT × SPRITE+ Devolved Funding (Invite Only) – application planned, building on outcomes from the EVERESTS Sandpit project.

5. Academic publications and further dissemination of findings:

   - One peer‑reviewed poster accepted (ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services – MobiSys 2026 Posters).

   - One additional publication submitted and currently under review.

Future work will prioritise small‑scale user studies with older adults to empirically assess usability, trust, and effectiveness, building directly on the design insights and architecture developed in this project.