80% increase in phishing attacks: The Israeli cyber security company reports a surge in fraud in the shopping month • This is how you will protect yourself online
Shopping month is here, and under the auspices of discounts, promotions and floor prices - are also celebrating phishing attacks and network scams.
The Israeli cyber security company Check Point announced this morning (Tuesday) that in the first two weeks of November there was an 80% increase in phishing campaigns - compared to the weekly average in October - around the words Special offers, along with the terms Sale, Offer, Cheap and Off %.
The security company also notes that in two consecutive days in November the number of malicious emails on the subject was more than a full week in October, and in the last six weeks there has been a 13-fold jump in the number of malicious emails in the world.
Also, 1 in 826 emails sent contains a malicious file, compared to 1 in 11,000 emails in early October.
One of the prominent brands that hackers are impersonating at the current shopping event, and not for the first time, is Pandora Jewelry.
Check Point says that this is a campaign that has already "trapped" victims in the United States, England and Bulgaria. The goal: to steal your credit information.
In previous years, there were also stung Israelis, and you can find dozens of phishing sites throughout the network that allegedly offer Danish brand jewelry at huge discounts, and in some of them even embedded PayPal logos, credit companies, and security and antivirus companies - to give you a sense of security.
Omar Dembinski, director of data research at Check Point, predicts that corona restrictions, which have already significantly increased online shopping, will lead to a break in hackers' activity around online shopping this month.
"The focus of hackers on promotions and discounts is clear and on a very sharp rise. Hackers manage to produce very misleading sites, almost identical to the original. Consumers who shop online must be especially careful during this period regarding the emails they receive and where they shop online."
Check Point has published a number of recommendations for dealing with phishing attacks
Beware of "too good to be true" promotions - especially during this period, if the promotion sounds too good, there is a good chance it is not real.
Reusing passwords is a mistake - hackers tend to use the password they get, along with the username, on multiple sites at the same time assuming we do not change our passwords.
This is a good time to replace it and not go back to it on different sites.
Do not share unnecessary data - there is no reason to provide sites with information that is not really necessary to buy.
Be especially careful of password reset emails - this is a great way to copy your password.
If you did not ask for it to be reset - do not treat such emails as genuine.
Pay attention to the addresses from which the emails came - sometimes the change is in a comma, period or letter.
Look for the lock - secure shopping on unsecured sites should be avoided - secure sockets layer (SSL).
They can be identified by the letter S in the URL - HTTPS instead of HTTP or in a lock icon usually to the left of the URL.