As well as opening the Christmas shopping season, Black Friday is also one of the most eagerly awaited dates for those looking for the best discounts. However, it is also a period with associated risks.
In a recent analysis, to which Euronews had first-hand access during the Web Summit in Lisbon, cybersecurity company NordVPN said it had detected a 250 per cent increase in the number of fake online shops in the run-up to Black Friday, commonly marked on the last Friday of November, this year on the 28th.
“With the start of the Christmas shopping season, customers are facing unprecedented levels of phishing attacks and fraudulent websites,” the company says, with the number of sites created to look as much like eBay as possible soaring by 525 per cent in October compared to September.
In addition, NordVPN concluded that there was a 232 per cent increase in the number of new “imitations” of Amazon’s website.
Meanwhile, around “68 per cent of consumers around the world don’t know how to identify a phishing site,” the company warned.
As a result, between August and October, there was a 36 per cent increase in the number of attacks of this nature.
The analysis comes after the cybersecurity company released another set of data revealing that the prices at which stolen payment cards are sold on dark web marketplaces have increased in most countries.
According to NordVPN, “prices on the dark web mainly follow the simple logic of supply and demand”.
Thus, “criminals pay more for cards from countries where supply is low and anti-fraud controls are strict, such as Japan”. On the other hand, in “markets with abundant data, such as the US or Spain, cards are cheaper and often sold together, which reduces the price per card”.
Furthermore, the investigation details that “compared to other countries, Americans are the most affected by payment card fraudsters,” since “more than 60 per cent of payment cards belonged to US users”.
Singapore is in second place with around 11 per cent, with Spain in third place with around 10 per cent.
Black Friday: what are the main threats?
Adrianus Warmenhoven, NordVPN’s cybersecurity expert, told Euronews that coordinated attacked from cybercriminals are among the “biggest threats” to consumers.
“Criminals create convincing fake websites, impersonate trustworthy brands in emails, in searches and on social media, and disseminate misleading adverts that direct shoppers to similar shops, designed to capture every detail of the checkout,” he warned.
They also steal people’s card data from legitimate websites through methods such as e-skimming, which is when “malicious” lines of code are used to hijack digital payment tools and “silently record” people’s personal and financial data, Warmenhoven added.
Together, “brand counterfeiting, fake adverts and cloned shops create the bait, while e-skimming and related script injections carry out the large-scale theft,” he said.
The end result is “a constant flow of validated card data that can be quickly monetised through gift cards, merchandise, travel, cryptocurrencies, or outright theft”.
Thus, for the buyer, these scams have serious real-world consequences, including financial and identity theft.
Even when the bank reimburses the money stolen in this way, Warmenhoven warned that victims end up with “blocked cards,” but also with “litigation documentation” to deal with, “lost parcels and a long series of password resets and credit monitoring”.
How can consumers protect themselves?
Warmenhoven shared some tips with Euronews on how shoppers can avoid online scams this Black Friday: