Post Cyber Monday thoughts

Now that the Cyber Monday and Black Friday madness of buying at reduced prices is almost over, we expect to see the spam and scam campaigns related to these events.

Every year, in the last week of November the two events bring into our inboxes a lot of spam and scams trying to make use of the buying frenzy of the unaware users. With the continuous growth of the social media websites like Twitter, Facebook and others, we see also a lot of such offers published there as well.

The campaigns have started about a week before the Black Friday, trying to lure users to buy various things at unbelievable prices. Now, being in the middle of the week, we are seeing spams containing offers related to various opportunities of reselling the goods which were bought during this time and are not wanted by their owners. Exactly the same is happening after Christmas until middle of January every year.

All these have something in common: social engineering and greed.

I think that anyone would click on an offer if he sees a product which he wants since a lot of time, but it was too expensive to purchase. If below the picture of the long wanted product there is something like “50% off or More” or an unbelievable price, many would simply not resist and then the reasoning ends and greed starts.

There have been many things written about not buying from spams or from offers which are simply too good to be true.

I just want to remind you once more that the spammers get their money from those who offer the goods for sale. So, if you don’t want to receive spams in the long term, then don’t buy anything that is advertised in such emails or Facebook and Twitter posts.

Another fact is that many of these offers are fake: that is, if you pay for a product, there is a good chance that you will never see the product and you lose your money for good.

Always buy from websites which you or your friends know. Remember that not always the online website ratings are real, the various “security checked” seals can be easily faked and, most important of all, if something is too good to be true, then probably isn’t.

 

Sorin Mustaca

IT Security Expert

 

via Avira – TechBlog http://techblog.avira.com/2012/11/27/post-cyber-monday-thoughts/en/

© Copyright 2012 Sorin Mustaca, All rights Reserved. Written For: Sorin Mustaca on Cybersecurity

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