With Black Friday and Small Business Saturday passed, Cyber Monday may be the last chance people have for shopping for the great deals ahead of Christmas.
Unfortunately, Cyber Monday is also a popular day for scammers to try to target people shopping for gifts. Their overall goal is to steal your identity and banking information.
Clicking a bad link or an ad that has been sent to you could give them access to your personal information, according to Rochester First. You should take your time while shopping online to make sure these places are legitimate.
$10.8 billion dollars were spent on Cyber Monday in 2021, and that number could be higher this year.
Cyber criminals have the ability to try to get their websites promoted to the top of a search engine page like Google. The best course of action is to open a new browser and type the business name to see what matching results come up.
If you land on a bad page and type your information in, it will go right to the criminals. Using a public WiFi connection is also dangerous.
Phishing through emails and texts have become increasingly common. Many times malware will be installed on your machine with digital gift cards or links.
To see if the link is secure, look at the beginning of the web address. Those that say http: but not https: are not secure. A hacker can then watch everything you’re doing.
It’s also a better idea to use credit cards instead of debit cards when shopping online. This way you won’t lose actual money and it’s easier to flag suspicious activity.
FingerLakes1.com is the region’s leading all-digital news publication. The company was founded in 1998 and has been keeping residents informed for more than two decades. Have a lead? Send it to [email protected].