Phishing Holiday

As we enter Black Friday week, and the holiday season is well underway, everyone is starting to relax and look forward to a much-needed break.

Don’t forget that it’s now a prime time for phishing attacks.

Criminals will be looking to use the latest tech offers and those must-have gifts for the kids to trick many of us into following suspicious links all aimed at obtaining our login credentials.
In order to avoid these holidays phishing attacks, I’d suggest following these simple steps:-

• It’s obvious, but when you’re offered that unbelievable deal on an iPhone X or Pixel 2 it’s easy to forget, but don’t click on any links from unknown people.
• Don’t forget that friends can also be duped into sending links via social media, messenger or email. If a link looks suspicious, don’t click on it.
• Fake websites now look just like the real ones. Check and double-check the webpage is genuine before entering any of your credentials or confidential information. (at least take a look at the URL, Google Chrome & Firefox may help, see below).
• Don’t enter your credit card details on unfamiliar or suspicious sites, if a deal looks too good to be true, it’s probably fake.
• Help others and forward any phishing emails you receive over to me@rescam.org and scam the scammers.

Look at switching over to Firefox, Google Chrome browser or even invest in a Chromebook. Google has gone a long way to introduce techniques to combat many of these threats by blocking some suspicious URLs.

In addition to Chrome, Google has also implemented new security tools such as the Advanced Protection program and through its new two-step verification program Google Prompt.