Every year sees a big spike in cybercrime during Black Friday sales – and the issue is much more than buying a non-existent iPad from ‘Amazoon’.
Cybercriminals love using special events to disguise attack emails. Black Friday sale offers, vouchers and advertising are ideal as people glance quickly at the ‘great deal’ and click the link without careful thought.
Email and SMS are the most common way to hide a malicious payload. The objective will be one of two things: get someone to enter their email password or to click a link to infected software. Work computers, personal laptops and (increasingly) mobiles are all attractive targets.
Even if it is a staff member’s personal phone which is infected, this infection can easily spread to work systems and documents.
We all know the main precautions, but it is important to keep them top of mind:
- Don’t click links from unknown sources – but be aware that legitimate retailer sites and email can be used to launch attacks.
- Don’t supply your email password to open a document.
- Don’t use your work email address for online shopping or general web use.
- Do keep your antivirus software on and up-to-date.
- Do report and follow up any unusual system behaviour after you attempt to interact with a link or attachment.
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