Fake ‘Black Friday’ Advertisements Making Rounds on the Internet

Security researchers are warning e-shoppers that 'Black Friday' advertisements are an easy medium for cybercriminals to distribute malware and viruses and launch phishing scams, that can easily victimize anybody, without warning, as reported by Thee poch times on November 18, 2010.

Researchers further stated that e-shoppers can infect their computers by visiting websites that contains viruses and malware or to bogus phishing websites, which appears like bank websites like PayPal to compromise login credentials and money, while shopping online for this festive season.

They further added that, as a matter of fact, the festive season is infamous for being exploited by cybercrooks.

Disturbingly, the above mentioned points became more convincing when a latest survey conducted by the security firm Webroot that included over 2,660 Americans, British, and Australian shoppers was considered.

Over half of the respondents stated that they would do their entire festival shopping using internet or search engines, whereas over 10% of the respondents were already victimized by PayPal, credit or debit accounts scam this year.

The survey also revealed some of consumers' online patterns and habits, like, few of the respondents think that using search engines might put both their system and privacy at risk, especially because they contain malware.

Around 48% of e-shoppers stated that they usually use search engines to find and buy presents online. However, 59% of e-shoppers trust only the first few links or pages displayed by the search results and consider only those pages safe for shopping purposes. This same figure was 38% in 2009.

Particularly, usage of dangerous public Wi-Fi has augmented from 12% in 2009 to 18% in 2010.

Commenting on the entire matter and more specifically findings, Jeff Horne, Threat Research Director at Webroot stated that, through their survey, they got to know that one out of seven respondents have been already victimized by fake credit, debit account scams in 2010. Moreover, 57% of the respondents got phishing e-mails from fake sources that pretended to be an authorized firm, which are generally noticed around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Further, Jeff urged all the e-shoppers to follow safe e-shopping practices to enjoy the festive season to the fullest and to end the year on a secure note, as reported by Cnet on November 17, 2010.

Related article: Fake Spam Mail Announces Australian PM’s Heart Attack

» SPAMfighter News - 11/24/2010