By Jon Munshaw. This holiday shopping season, the basics of avoiding a malware infection boils down to: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
While sometimes retailers do give out small-dollar gift cards, that $500 discount on a new iPhone is probably not real. If it is a scam, it will definitely not help you get your new iPhone 11 Pro Max.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Talos researchers are hitting radio and television networks to alert customers of what to do to stay safe while shopping online. Common attack vectors this time of year include fake websites, coupons, invoices and more, all designed to get shoppers to click on malicious links that eventually lead to adversaries stealing login, banking or personal information.Craig Williams, the director of Talos Outreach, appeared on the nationally syndicated radio show “This Morning with Gordon Deal” and discussed common attacks. One scam he discussed involves adversaries sending a fake check or gift card to a shopper, asking them to act as a “secret shopper.”
The adversaries have the shopper either verify the in-store money transfer service, like Western Union or MoneyGram, by sending some of the money the shopper received or by purchasing gift cards and sending pictures of them to the adversaries. At this point, the shopper is free to spend the rest of the money on themselves. Eventually, however, the bank realizes that the check is fake and the shopper is left with a massive hole in their bank account. The attackers pocket a nice present from the victim.
Sound overly complicated? Don’t worry, adversaries are still sticking to their bread-and-butter of malicious emails and ads as ..
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