This is a short article, but I decided to post this one because this was a past thought I had as the US was approaching Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber week/ Cyber Monday. It may still be a too early for there to be stories on hacking for this time period since today is Cyber Monday, but I will be waiting for the stories to come out in a couple weeks or so. Consumers continue to not be able to identify the safety of online shopping websites which continues to put them at risk for holiday hacking. Only 50% of the American population claims they can determine the legitimacy of online shopping websites. This was discovered by a survey conducted by the Global Cyber Alliance (GCA). Over one-third of the survey respondents stated they have stopped online purchasing due to security concerns. 27% of them overly worry due to the fear of being scammed and 12% lose sleep over it. 60% have had their machine infected with malware. This is the time of the year for cybercriminals to scam. They launch more fake websites during holiday shopping than any other time of the year. In November 2016, over 100,000 fake websites were launched that targeted over 300 brands. The most “spoof-able” sites were Amazon, Walmart and Target. Typically, scammers trick their victims by creating websites that look like the actual brand websites. A major difference is the fake site has a different IP address. The GCA discovered that nearly 77% of users have mistyped the website into their browser, clicked on a suspicious link or both.
https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/half-of-americans-unsure-of-online-shopping-safety/d/d-id/1330471?
I found a few articles on this when I was looking for an article this week. A lot of the tips given are the same ones people should always use when online such as making sure the URL is spelled correctly and don’t click links from emails without verifying the sender. Hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated though, making their websites and emails look more and more perfect. I don’t blame people for being wary of online shopping.
Elizabeth,
Very interesting article. I am surprised this high percentage of Americans don’t trust online shopping. I do believe the something, we share our sensitive information all time with different individuals and that can put us under the risk to be victims. These parties sell us items are individuals and they can be scams having the goal of attacking us.
Thank you for the article.