Scam of the Week: “Cyber Monday is Scammer Heaven”

The majority of consumers are aware of online phishing scams, but still may fall victim this cyber Monday…

DomainTools, a leader in domain name and DNS-based cyber threat intelligence, released the findings of their 2017 Cyber Monday Phishing Survey this week.

The survey results highlighted that two in five U.S. consumers have fallen victim to an online phishing attack, despite the fact that 91 percent are aware of the existence of these spoofed websites or emails of trusted brands.

As the holiday shopping season approaches, 92 percent of all consumers shop online and about half are planning to shop online on Cyber Monday, exposing an opportunity for malicious hackers to strike. DomainTools has illustrated its key findings in an InfoGraphic: https://blog.domaintools.com/2017/11/cyber-monday-deal-or-phishing-scam/

“Cyber Monday has grown in popularity year over year, and unfortunately, so has phishing and online counterfeiting. A range of techniques are used to trick shoppers into visiting a fake website or clicking on a malicious link.

This can result in a shopper unintentionally sharing financial and personal information with these criminals or even downloading ransomware,” said Tim Chen, CEO of DomainTools. “As shoppers search for Cyber Monday deals, it’s important that they remember to look closely at links and email addresses before clicking. If something seems too good to be true, it may instead be very fake and very bad.”

At the moment, there are too-good-to-be-true coupons that offer complimentary phones or tablets all over sites on the Internet. Don’t fall for it. Make sure the offers are from a legitimate company.

Watch out for alerts via email or text that you just received a package from FedEx, UPS or the US Mail, and then asks you for some personal information. Don’t enter anything. Think Before You Click!

So, especially now, the price of freedom is constant alertness and willingness to fight back. Remember to only use credit cards online, never debit cards. Be super-wary of bulk email with crazy good BUY NOW offers and anything that looks slightly “off”. If you think you might have been scammed, stay calm and call your credit card company, nix that card and get a new one.