Black Friday and Cyber Monday Cyber Scams on the Rise
Category
Awareness, News, Vulnerabilities
Risk Level
“Ready to log-in and shop?”
As things return to their pre-COVID levels, crowds at malls are returning to their claustrophobic norms, parking is a nightmare, and you can see the panic in people’s eyes again as they search for the perfect gift. In 2022 though, there are likely less people who still seek the thrill of a Black Friday sale at the mall, but for the rest of us, we have online shopping to the rescue.
“Bring on Black Friday and Cyber Monday!”
Not so fast my friend. There are some steps you need to protect yourself when shopping online (and we’re not even talking about buying yourself gifts instead of for other people):
Don’t Use Public Wi-Fi
As we talked about before, public Wi-Fi is dangerous. Your internet browsing, including entering your credit card information, may not be secure, and you don’t know who is in the middle or on the other end of that connection. If you decide to venture out for a Venti mocha at the mall and connect to a nearby Wi-Fi, it’s best to skip the Wi-Fi and stick to your cellular data, or if you have a personal VPN set up on your phone, use that if you absolutely must connect to a public Wi-Fi network.
Phishing emails
Picture this: it’s a few days before the holidays and you’re waiting on a few more gifts to arrive at your door when an email pops up on your phone. It says you have a missed delivery! But you were home all day! Frantically, you click on the link in the email and enter your Amazon account email and password. It logs you into Amazon, but no packages are showing up as delayed. What’s going on here?
Sorry friend - the holidays won’t be so jolly for you. You just fell for a phishing email, and now someone has access to your Amazon account to order themselves whatever they want. And if you haven’t set up your password manager yet, that stolen password may give a hacker access to other websites like your bank account, or email.
Make sure all your IT devices are up to date
Remember when we talked about vulnerabilities, and how you need to apply updates to your IT devices as soon as possible to stop them? Time to put the ice skate to the ice on this one. If you’re clicking around every website searching for the right gift, odds are you may encounter a sketchy website. That website could be infected, and if your IT devices aren’t up to date, they could be infected too. So do yourself a favor and top up your holiday cheer with some updates.
Some bonus tips
While these bonus tips aren’t all cybersecurity related, they’re still important things to remember while shopping online:
● Use a credit card instead of a debit card (or use the credit feature of your debit card): Credit card functionality offers better protections to get your money back should your credit card number get stolen. Debit cards can let a hacker empty your bank account faster than a bowl of eggnog running dry at a company holiday party.
● Only buy from trusted retailers: Sketchy websites probably have sketchy cybersecurity, which could lead to your information getting stolen. Avoid the unknown websites and stick to the well known ones to avoid an avalanche of problems.
Happy holidays and happy shopping everyone!
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