The holidays are a time for friends, family, gratitude and of course…mass shopping! Through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and the new trend in recent years, Cyber Monday, there is plenty of money to be made and plenty at risk of being lost.
According to a June 2014 study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the likely annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime could reach $575 billion. That’s a lot of money!
So in order to make you more aware of what could happen, here’s what we think you should look out for…
Social Engineering
Social engineering is the process of manipulating people to give up private information. If you are checking out on an obscure website and the site asks you to “confirm” the last 4 digits of your social security number, chances are you’re being hacked. Get…Out! Getting 75% off that 55” TV isn’t worth the price of identity theft.
Phishing
Ever get an email from “Amazan.com”? Around the holiday season, you’ll receive a ton of emails that look legitimate but are certainly not. Most online retailers will never reference your account or ask you to confirm your identity via email unless you specifically requested it.
Before clicking through any email promotions, there are several things you should be on the look out for, first:
- Make sure the business name is spelt correctly. Spammers typically replace a single letter in a business name, hoping you don’t notice. This could be something as obviously as changing Amazon to Amazan or could be a bit more subtle, using a capital ‘i’ to replace a lowercase ‘L’.
- Check the sender’s email address. Major retailers will never send you anything from a third party domain, especially if that email is coming from a free email service. I’m pretty sure you won’t ever get an email from “itunes@gmail.com”.
- Pay close attention to the verbiage. The easiest way to recognize a fraudulent email is with misspelled words or grammatical errors. Major online retailers have each of their emails screened by teams of editors and marketing agents before they’re released. You’ll almost never find an error in them!
- Pre-scan the links contained in the email. A simple trick to see where an email ad is sending you is to just hover your mouse over the link. In email programs, such as Outlook, a web address will pop up in a notification bubble. In webmail programs, such as Gmail, you’ll see the destination URL displayed in the lower address bar. If these URLs seem sketchy at all, then stay away!
Spammers and phishers have even gotten extremely accurate in recent years, so be sure to pay close attention to everything that comes in. If you’re ever unsure whether or not you’re looking at a real deal – just visit the retailer’s website directly. They will almost always display the same deals on their homepage. If it’s an email only special, they’ll display a coupon code you can use at checkout to receive the same great discount!
Phonetics and Grammar
This one should be obvious, but if you go to a website that advertises a “Grate Deel” or seems to look like it was slapped together by a 4th grade art student – chances are you want to avoid anything to do with it. A lot of the time it won’t even be a real offer, you’ll end up putting money in some random person’s bank account.
Fake Advertisements
We all want the best deal possible, especially with so many companies vying for your business. Beware of fake ads and save yourself a lot of headaches by sticking with well known retailers: Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, etc.
People make the mistake of searching for “Black Friday Deals” and see some type of “great deal” for an XBox One for $99 on Amazon. Like your mom always say, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!”
Site Swap
Sometimes you’ll get a really ambitious scam artist that build fake sites that look almost exactly like the real ones, and then link them to a URL that has one letter that’s different. How many times have you typed “gogle.com” instead of google?
If you’re unsure at ALL about the validity of a website, just stay away from it. If you’re really convinced that the deal is too good to pass up, you can verify the link on websites like www.wheredoesthislinkgo.com. But keep in mind that these are only resources to help steer you in the right direction.
When in Doubt… Ask for Help!
All in all, keep your eyes wide open. Pay very close attention to the “too good to be true” deals. And if you come across something you’re just not sure of – don’t be afraid to send us an email, a tweet, or a Facebook message and ask for help!
From all of us here at S-FX.com, have a safe and happy holiday season!
For more great tips for Black Friday, visit Five Ways You’ll Be Hacked on Cyber Monday
