The “black friday”, a vein also for cybercriminals

The already popular "black friday", which will be followed by "cyber monday" ("cyber monday"), marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and mass consumption, but it is also the preferred lure for cybercriminals to launch their attacks through the network; there are very simple tips to take care of that make it more complicated.

Each death of a celebrity, each sporting event (a World Cup or an Olympics) and each date indicated in the calendar is used by cybercriminals to launch their attacks against consumers and users of the network, and the main institutions that ensure security online and specialized companies activate their batteries of recommendations to avoid traps.

Among them, the most recurrent when it comes to a date with such a purely commercial nature is the "phishing": the impersonation of an Internet page by another practically identical one in which users enter their data and carry out commercial transactions that are actually a scam.

First advice: before completing a transaction, the consumer should make sure that the page is secure, and check that the address where they are browsing begins with "https", and that it has a security certificate and trust seal.

This has been stated by sources from the National Institute of Cybersecurity of Spain (INCIBE), who have detailed to EFE the decalogue of recommendations that users must take into account before the "black friday" and the proliferation of online offers.

INCIBE has underlined the importance of analyzing the emails received by users offering promotions to make sure that it is the official brand that sends them before doing "click" in a link, and has pointed out that it should also be verified that the page has a security and privacy section that details what data they collect and how they use it.

We must be wary, according to this Institute, if the page does not have legal notice with information about the company, conditions of sale, returns or claims, and we must also suspect if the prices are significantly below the market or if all the products have the same amount.

To their decalogue of advice they add that of searching the network itself for information about the reputation of the store in which the transaction is going to be made -through the ratings or reviews of other users-, and pay special attention to "appearance" of the store, that its design is homogeneous, that the images have quality and that all the sections are complete and well written.

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Numerous companies specializing in computer security and authentication have also issued their recommendations regarding the proliferation of offers and promotions on the occasion of the "black friday" and the "cyber monday" and so that purchases are made with confidence and security.

The international company WatchGuard Technologies has warned that the way "more obvious" used by criminals these days is the "phishing" via email, suggesting that users avoid any suspicious email.

And he has also underlined the relevance of not providing the data of a bank card when there is no guarantee of protection, of not buying on any website and of looking for the padlock in the browser or the letters "https: //", which ensure that communication with that site is encrypted.

The computer security company ESET has warned that criminals have launched many malicious email campaigns to steal user information, especially that related to their credit cards, and has specified that one of the techniques preferred by scammers is the of supplanting transport or logistics companies to make their emails credible.

Specialized in the information security sector, the company S21sec has also pointed to the "phishing" as the main threat during a period of increasing purchases like the one that begins now, and the proliferation of attractive content that encourages consumers to do "click" on a link from which criminals can steal personal and financial information.

And to the most common recommendations, it adds that of not filling out forms on unreliable websites and that of keeping the operating systems of computers and mobile device applications up-to-date.

According to data from the multinational Kaspersky, fraud in digital payments multiplies during sales dates or seasons. The company has detailed that its systems have detected more than 200,000 emails "trash" or unwanted ("spam") containing the words "black friday".

Impersonations ("phishing") The most recurrent, according to the data provided by this multinational, are those that replicate the pages of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba or Mercado Libre.

As a last piece of advice, institutions and companies agree on the importance of distrusting pages that offer prices well below the normal market and attending to one of the oldest recommendations, which has become almost an aphorism: "too good to be true".

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