He Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just around the corner and numerous stores are flooded with offers to mark the occasion Start of the Christmas campaign. Nowadays, many customers choose to shop online and avoid the crowded malls. For this reason, the Professional College of Computer Education of Galicia (CPEIG) and the Ertzaintza have prepared for it Recommendations for preventing cyber fraud which multiply heavily at this time of year.
The CPEIG warns that Spain is “the second largest country in the world where internet sales have grown the most” and that “cyber scams have increased sharply recently”. It’s that time of year, with the Black Friday discounts and the arrival of Christmas opportune time to fall victim to it.
Tricks to avoid cyber fraud
The CPEIG recommends not only being careful with fake websites and using sufficiently strong passwords Avoid public WiFi to make purchases and to update all devices and applications, especially antivirus programs and the like.
In addition, Galician computer engineers suggest paying attention to the The websites used are safe. The way to identify them is to take a look Padlock symbol at the beginning the bar where you enter the address of the page and check whether the URL starts with ‘ or ‘shttp://’. The “S” indicates that the site has been encrypted and protected with an SSL certificate. Another tip is to check the information about the existence of the domain: if the domain is very recent and registered in the name of a mysterious entity, suspicion is justified
In any case, the CPEIG recommends that users take even more precautions and look for further evidence that the site is safe, such as its privacy policy, or use verification tools such as “Google Safe Browsing.
Computer engineers also recommend its use Credit cards for online purchases; Be wary of suspicious emails and advertisements, especially those with offers that are too good. and monitoring bank account activity.
For its part, the Ertzaintza has also published a series of tips for the offer days, highlighting that there are some Check if the online store is reliable. According to the agents Before purchasing, you should look for online reviews to check its reliability. If it is a reliable store, there will be contact information, physical address, all possible opinions and recommendations, etc.
Additionally, they recommend installing one Password manager: Among other things, different, random and secure passwords are created for each e-commerce and multi-factor authentication is used whenever possible.
How to avoid “phishing”
One of the biggest cyber threats is “phishing”, a strategy used to… Attackers send an email that appears to be from a well-known brand or store with a link that, when clicked, requests the user’s details, with a message alerting you to an alleged problem with an order and asking you to log in and confirm payment details.
To protect yourself from these attacks, the College of Computer Engineers recommends clicking this link instead: The consumer goes directly to the actual brand’s website and log in. Another very similar type of fraud is “smishing”, the same thing but via SMS.