Black Friday, Cyber monday and the end of the year holidays are as many opportunities to make online purchases as they are for hackers to perfect their scamming techniques. In fact, November and December are the months most prone to cyberattacks and represent a quarter of the scams committed during the year.
The malicious attempts mostly take the form of email fishing campaigns, ransomware* attacks or fraudulent websites with many tempting promotions. The goal is to get personal and banking information to access and profit from users’ accounts.
As the holidays approach, shipping companies with delivery services are the most affected by these types of frauds. Indeed, hackers use their brand image to send messages that suggest clicking on a link to obtain information about a package being delivered and thus recover a lot of information.
Some tips to avoid cyber scams before the holidays :
If the promotion seems much more attractive than anywhere else, then consider it suspicious on principle. In this case, it may be worthwhile to take a closer look at the seller.
Make sure you are not on a fraudulent copy of an official site or on a site created for the occasion. Sometimes, only one character can change in the URL, so as not to arouse suspicion.
Use a strong and different password for each application or website and don’t provide your personal or banking data too quickly at the risk of serious consequences: identity theft, fraudulent banking transactions…
*Ransomware, is a type of malware that prevents users from accessing their system or personal files and demands payment of a ransom in exchange for restoring access.
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