Beware! Online sales give fraudsters more opportunity to scam shoppers
If you are an ardent online shopper on prominent sale days and are a taker for alluring offers then read on to avoid scams. There has been a spike in financial phishing attacks before big sale days online.
FollowNew Delhi: While online sales come with great alluring offers, they also come with the risk of fraud in the-commerce vicinity.
A similar phenomenon was observed during an active sales period in Asian countries - Singles' Day on Monday, November 11 when Kaspersky researchers reported a sharp increase in fraudulent activities around e-commerce. Researchers detected a spike in financial phishing attacks before the big Singles' Day sale in 2018. The average number of financial phishing attacks fluctuated at around 350,000 per day in October.
Then, a couple of days before November 11, 2018, the spike in attacks reached more than 950,000. Researchers are also witnessing similar spam and phishing attacks at the moment and urge everyone to be careful with their purchases.
Moreover, some threats in mobile apps that were disguised as popular e-commerce platforms, were also found by researchers.
The share of shops that have special offers for Singles' Day is traditionally high. In 2019, 83% of the online shops were pretending to be Asian marketplaces, while in 2018 the number reached 93%.
Commenting on the same, Andrey Kostin, a security researcher at Kaspersky said, "Single's Day is the best time to shop and also a peak time for phishers and spammers. They become more active during this period."
Kostin explained that people lose their vigilance in pursuit of heavy discounts and added, "Such things should not be an obstacle for those hunting the best offers. Consumers have nothing to worry about if they follow the rules of basic cybersecurity hygiene," he continued.
In order to ensure that your online shopping is not marred by spam and phishing, follow this simple advice:
If you receive a link to a great offer via email, make sure to check the embedded hyperlink - sometimes it may differ from the visible one. If it does, access the deal page directly through the legitimate website.
Make purchases only through official marketplaces and pay attention to the web addresses if you are redirected to them from other landing pages. If they differ from the official retailer, consider checking the offer you were redirected to by looking for it on the official web page.
Use a security solution with behaviour-based anti-phishing technologies, such as Kaspersky Security Cloud or Kaspersky Total Security, which will notify you if you are trying to visit a phishing web page.
Never use the same password for several websites or services, because if one is stolen, all your accounts will be made vulnerable. To create strong hack-proof passwords without having to face the struggle of remembering them, use password managers, such as Kaspersky Password Manager.
