Are you ready for the holiday shopping season? You can assume that scammers have also revved up their engines and are ready for their high-season. They're primed and ready to take advantage of all those online transactions. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day, these are all huge online shopping days for Australians.
The recipe to being safe in this digital era includes an ounce of cybersecurity measures that gives you a pound of cure. A financial or privacy nightmare is not what you want this shopping season.
Here are some of the most critical safety tips to improve your online holiday shopping sprees.
Update Your Devices Before You Shop
Computers, tablets, and smartphones that have old software are especially vulnerable. It's time to exercise your patience and wait through a 10-minute iPhone update, it’s going to keep you more secure.
This is because hackers use vulnerabilities found in device operating systems. Updates often install patches for known vulnerabilities, hence reducing your risk. Make sure to install all updates before you use your device for online holiday shopping. You can even do the updating overnight, can't be much easier than that?
Don’t Go to Websites from Email Links
Yes, it takes a bit more time to have to type in “
amazon.com.au” rather than just clicking a link in an email. Why do we say this? Well, phishing scams are at an all-time high this time of year. Scarily, if you click on an email link to a malicious site, it can start an auto download of malware.
The most effective practice is to just avoid clicking links. Instead, visit the website directly. If you want to make things easier, save sites as shopping bookmarks in your browser. This is safer than clicking a text or email link.
Use a Wallet App Where You Can
Using your debit or credit card on a website can be quite the risk. The risk is even higher if you're shopping on a site you haven't previously used.
Where possible, buy using a wallet app or PayPal. This eliminates the need to give your payment card details directly to the merchant. Instead, you share them with the wallet app service (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc.). This is good because the retailer doesn’t get the numbers.
Remove Any Saved Payment Cards After Checking Out
There are many websites (including Amazon) that automatically save your payment card details. Is this bad? Yes. It may make the next purchase more convenient, but it puts you at risk. A hacker that has access to your device or account could make purchases without you knowing.
There is also the additional risk of a data breach on the retailers end. This is common and can result in leaks of sensitive customer payment information. The fewer databases you allow to store your payment details, the better it is for your security.
We recommend that immediately after you check out, remove your payment details from the website. You will usually need to go to your account settings to do this. But, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Use A Site That Has HTTPS (Emphasis on “S”)
HTTPS has largely become the standard for websites now. The alternative is “HTTP” without the “S” on the end. HTTPS means that a website encrypts the data transmitted through the site. Such as your name, address, and payment information.
You should NEVER shop on a website that doesn’t use HTTPS in the address bar. An extra indicator you can look to is a small lock icon in front of the website address.
Double Check the Site URL
Let's be honest, we all make typos from time to time. Especially when typing on a small smartphone screen. One typo can land you on a copycat site (such as Amazonn(dot)com or Ebbay(dot)com).
Hackers buy domains that are close to the real ones for popular retailers. What they then do is put up copycat sites designed to fool users that make a mistake when typing the URL.
Take those extra few seconds to double-check that you’ve landed on the correct website. Do this before you start shopping.
Never Shop Online When on Public Wi-Fi
When you connect your device to public Wi-Fi, you can pretty much expect a stranger to be watching what you're doing. Hackers LOVE the holiday shopping season and will hang out in popular public Wi-Fi spots.
What these hackers do is spy on the activities of other devices connected to that same free hotspot. This can give them access to everything you type in. The important things being passwords and credit card information.
The simple rule to follow is to never shop online when you’re connected to a public Wi-Fi network. Instead, switch off Wi-Fi and move to your mobile carrier’s connection.
Brand Impersonation Emails & Texts Are A Real Threat
Phishing scammers were very active during the holiday shopping season of 2021. There was a
397% increase in typo-squatting domains connected to phishing attacks.
It's a good habit to be careful all the time about phishing, but pay extra caution during the holiday season. People are expecting retailer holiday sales emails, attacks know this and take advantage. They also get a flurry of order confirmations and shipping notices this time of year.
Hackers use those emails as templates. They impersonate brands like Target, UPS, Amazon, and others. There is no limit to what brand they'll use. Their emails look nearly identical to the real thing. The purpose of these emails is to trick you to click and/or log in to a malicious website.
Be on high alert for brand impersonation emails. This is yet another reason why it’s always better to go to a site directly, rather than by using an email link.
Banking Alerts Are Your Best Friend
It's a good habit to check your bank account regularly. Look for any suspicious charges that could signal a breach. One way to automate a monitoring process is to set up banking alerts through your online banking app.
For example, many banks allow you to set up alerts for events such as:
- When a purchase occurs over a specified dollar amount
- When a purchase occurs from outside the country
I would consider both of these a great safety measures to put in place.
How Secure Is Your Mobile Device?
Mobile malware is often deployed in holiday shopping scams. How secure is your device from malicious apps and malware? Contact us today for a security checkup.