The holidays.
Full of fun, family, friends, food, and, unfortunately, increased cybercrime activity.
In 2017, fraud attempt rates were highest on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and December 21—the cutoff date for express shipments to arrive before Christmas.
43% of all consumers who had their identity stolen say it happened while shopping online during the holidays in 2018.
The holidays are a key time for cybercrime, exploiting unaware and uneducated internet users. Attackers can defraud and monetize their actions with little effort.
For example, spoofed email addresses can be used to gain access to supplier or customer login. Phony websites can be made to look exactly like those of major retailers. Public Wi-Fi is another hunting ground for attackers. All of these can be used to capture and record credit card information.
So how can your data remain secure during this holiday season?
Never reuse passwords or even similar versions of passwords. Use strong passwords, mixing numbers, special characters, and letters.
Verify online reputation of the e-commerce sites you visit.
Avoid shopping online or accessing bank account information on anything other than secured, private Wi-Fi connections.
Never click on suspicious links, open unknown files, or download items from unknown sources.
Look at the URL of sites you visit, cybercriminals may create a site with just one character difference in the URL to gain access to your data.
Check in to your bank accounts and track all purchases. Report any fraud immediately.
Keep all operating systems and applications up to date, ensure you have security measures in place.
Educate! Stay up to date on cybersecurity trends and solutions.
Interested in analyzing your security posture? PremierePC is here to help. Fill out this form to start your cybersecurity plan today.