Be careful for Black Friday, especially if you plan to shop online. Cybercrime is ready to hit you, exploiting the event with many bad tricks

Be careful for Black Friday, especially if you plan to shop online, cybercrime is ready to hit you. The shopping event is just around the corner, not only retailers and consumers are looking forward to make good deals. Cyber criminals know that this is a huge opportunity to exploit the proliferation of mobile shopping apps to earn a lot of money in a esay way. According to Kaspersky Lab cyber security experts, different malware groups are actively targeting 67 e-commerce brands. Half of which are banking trojans, such as Betabot, Zeus, IcedID, SpyEye, TinyNuke, Panda, Gozi, Chthonic, and Gootkit2. Malicious actors increased their efforts when it comes to e-commerce websites, as its activity increased from 6.6 million in 2015 to 12.3 million in 2018.

The most common cyber threats and scams on events like Black Friday. From Gift Carda and Rewards to Surveys and lotteries

The most commons digital scams of cybercrime for events like Black Fridays are many. There is the “Gift Card and Reward scams”, usually spreaded wia WhatsApp and other messaging apps. The message advertises giveaways, sale campaigns or promote new online retailers, asking users to click on a fraudulent link or enter sensitive information into a spoofing site. After the infiltration, users’ personal accounts can be used for different purposes. From cyber attacks to spam fake messages to all his contacts list on social media, increasing the rate of the infection. There are also the fake Surveys and lotteries with valuable prizes, especially designated. The scheme is similar to that used for the gift cards, the lures change. No more save money, but earn money or top brand products.  But the goal of cyber criminals is the same: steal sensitive info and credit cards numbers, or inoculating malware.

Cybercrime exploits Social media scams, phishing emails and the fake apps to spread malware and steal sensitive info

Fianlly, there are the Social media scams, the phishing emails and the fake apps for the shopping. With the firts ones, cybercrime promises valuable prizes, discounts or coupons and deals on Black Friday. This in order to collect personal information about users. In the second and third, the cyber criminals exploits fake extra saving or desined application that mimic real ones to shop online to spread malware and steal sensitive info. To these threats another is added, which also concerns the most attentive buyers: the cyber attacks on the E-commerce real sites. Often to maximize the profits in special periods, the owners pay little attention to their cyber security, preferring to focus on the commercial strategy. So, they become a big target for the cybercrime. If it seems too good to be true, it most likely is not. Therefore, pay maximum attention!