Shopping scams, gift card payment requests and other dangerous tricks threaten to ruin the holiday season
KnowBe4, the provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, announced it has released a set of the top 5 cybersecurity tips to help protect end users against a variety of dangerous scams during the 2021 holiday season.
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Every year, people fall victim to holiday scams. The FBI says that the two most popular holiday scams are non-delivery and non-payment crimes. In a non-delivery scam, a buyer pays for goods or services they find online, but those items are never received. Conversely, a non-payment scam involves goods or services being shipped, but the seller is never paid. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center’s (IC3) 2020 report, non-payment or non-delivery scams cost people more than $265 million.
Here is a list of the Top 5 Cybersecurity Tips for the 2021 Holiday Season:
- If the price of a good or service seems too good to be true or if a high-demand or hard to get item becomes available on an unknown website, be very cautious.
- Always double check the seller’s online presence and reputation when making online purchases, especially if it is from a website you have never heard of.
- When paying for items, be careful of offers to accept gift cards that are for other stores as payment, and if paying for items with an online payment app such as PayPal, ensure that the method of payment offers the buyer protection.
- Ensure that you do not reuse passwords across different websites and use a password that is not easily guessable. Cybercriminals know that if they get one password, it is likely to work in other places. Password managers are a great tool for storing passwords safely.
- Enabling multi-factor authentication on email, shopping and social media accounts whenever possible is a positive extra step that end users can take to better protect their accounts.
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“Nothing will rob a person of holiday cheer as fast as discovering that they have been scammed out of their hard-earned money,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO, KnowBe4. “Some of the best ways to stay safe during the holiday season are not even high tech in nature, making these tips easy for anyone to follow. Taking note of these five simple tips is a great way to ensure that everyone has a safe and secure holiday season.”
