Since October, more than 5,300 malicious shopping sites have appeared every week, where cyber criminals try to trick people into spending money on counterfeit or non-existent products via fake shopping sites.
The report by the cyber threat intelligence service Check Point outlined some of the strategies used by these sites. While one of these sites sent phishing emails with links that led people to sites with prices too good to be true, another site pretended to be legitimate shopping sites.
Omer Dembinsky, Data Group Manager at Check Point, said: “Hackers are doubling down on the strategy to lure consumers into fraud through ‘too good to be true offers, promising large discounts such at 80% or 85% off. Their strategy is to capitalize on a consumer’s excitement after showing an eye-popping discount. I strongly urge consumers to beware of these ‘too good to be true” offers as they shop online on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”
To help users and organizations protect themselves from malicious shopping sites and e-commerce scams, Check Point advised them to follow simple steps, including making sure they shop directly from a reliable website, paying attention to duplicate addresses, trusting their instincts, searching for the lock icon and the “S” in HTTPS in their browser’s address bar, and finally making sure they are wary of resetting email passwords.
For more information, read the original story in Tech Republic.