As the festive season commences, so do online sales, and in turn, increased online shopping. The festive season is one of the busiest times in terms of online shopping. And scammers know this well. While you prepare to shop your hearts out this festive season, they are gearing up to scam innocent users. Keeping that in mind cybersecurity experts from Seqrite Labs have shared critical trends in digital frauds.
When you shop online, make sure that you’re safe. Here are some scams that are pretty common around the festive season:
Fake shopping websites
As I mentioned previously, the festive season calls for a lot of shopping. Scammers have created many fake shopping websites that pretty much look like the real ones. The fake links are shared along with festive wishes on WhatsApp, mail, or SMS. Once the users go to these websites, they often end up getting scammed, the product never gets delivered, and often their personal data is misused too.
IRCTC application scam
People travel a lot during the festive season and now a fake IRCTC website has been identified that steals users’ data when comes to booking their tickets. The fake website is lined with spyware that steals credentials from Facebook and Google, extracts codes from Google Authenticator, tracks GPS locations, and can even use the device’s camera to capture videos.
Gift card scam
Scammers also send fake messages stating that a user has won a certain prize or gift card. Such messages often read, “Dear customer, congratulations! You have won….” They ask users to claim this by clicking on a link. The link directs them to malicious websites where users’ personal data is compromised.
Banking reward scams
Under this scam, fraudsters will lure you into downloading harmful APK files. Urgency messages such as “available only today” or “last day to avail” will be added to create a sense of urgency. With these links, they will promise some exciting prices or will say that your account has been blocked due to a KYC error or something and hence you should do the required work urgently. And once you click on these links you might lose out on your money, your personal data can be misused, etc.
Source Credit: https://www.digit.in/