As Black Friday and Cyber Monday attract a lot of shoppers, cybercriminals use more sophisticated measures such as scams and malware to lure these shoppers to hand over their payment data. Domain impersonation, social media giveaway scams, and malicious Chrome extension can all lead you to the trap set by cybercriminals.
“We looked for scams that were related to Black Friday, we actually found a ton. We identified over 60,000 and then in particular, we identified a bit over 10,000 that were using Black Friday, as kind of a hook to try and get people to click on these scams.,” said threat researcher from Threatpost.
Some catchy graphic and something offered for free posting on popular social media like Twitter and Facebook are the scam for trapping your money. The primary target for most of these scammers is those large brands that have a physical store such as Walmart and Target. Further, some electronics bids, such as Apple, and luxury brands, such as Tiffany & Co, are also highly targeted on Black Friday. However, luxury goods are still considered a smaller percentage of the overall scams as the majority targeting brick and mortar stores is 92%. Because most people tend to shop at a traditional brick and mortar store rather than at a jewelry shop or other luxury stores. In addition, as brick and mortar stores usually are carrying a diverse type of goods, these stores may carry a higher saleroom than those stores selling jewelry and luxury goods.
Even though the online marketplaces like Amazon is surprisingly less popular to scam attackers, it does not mean we can ignore the impersonated domains attacks at online marketplaces. It is usually a little bit change different from the original legitimate websites. If people have been to that legitimate site before, they may be able to tell they are not on the right site. However, this trap is absolutely endangering those users who have not been to the official website. Even if it is not a particularly good impersonation, there are always victims who got trapped in this attack.
So this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, pay close attention when shopping online and in stores. Anything that may seem too good to be true probably is. Advertising that promises free giveaways or coupon deals are most likely phishing for you to click on the link and then steal your private data, such as passwords and credit card information. Gift card scams, robocalls, and online pop-ups are just some of the types of scams trying to lure shoppers this holiday season. The FBI, says one of the top scams is robocalls and answering these calls increases your chance of being a victim.
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Credit:
threatpost.com/black-friday-shoppers-scams-fake-domains/150593/
www.news10.com/news/local-news/fbi-warns-consumers-of-top-holiday-scams/
