{"id":2037038,"date":"2024-11-20T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/securityboulevard.com\/?p=2037038"},"modified":"2024-11-20T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T14:00:12","slug":"black-friday-scammers-are-hard-at-work-security-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/securityboulevard.com\/2024\/11\/black-friday-scammers-are-hard-at-work-security-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Friday Scammers are Hard at Work: Security Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving in the United States is still a week away, but online scammers for more than a month have been gearing up for the busy Black Friday shopping that comes the day after.<\/p>\n

Cybersecurity firms are warning about various schemes designed to separate anxious shoppers from their money and data as the holiday shopping period begins in earnest. The U.S. Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3) reported that over the past five years, 3.79 million complaints filed resulted in $37.4 billion in losses, with $12.5 billion reported last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

England\u2019s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) this month said shoppers lost\u00a0\u00a311 million<\/a> \u2013 almost $14 million \u2013 to online scams during last year\u2019s \u201cfestive shopping period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scams aimed at shoppers this year are ramping up. Threat researchers with cybersecurity firm Kaspersky began seeing an uptick in spam emails using the term \u201cBlack Friday\u201d in early September, with the numbers surging to more than 198,400 in the first two weeks of November.<\/p>\n

\u201cScammers often impersonate major retailers like Amazon, Walmart or Etsy<\/a> with deceptive emails to lure unsuspecting victims,\u201d they wrote in a report this week. \u201cThese emails typically claim to come from the companies themselves and promote exclusive discounts, especially during high-traffic shopping periods like Black Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Special Buys, Discounted Prices<\/h3>\n

The pointed to one campaign this year that Amazon\u2019s \u201cspecial buyers team\u201d was offering an exclusive sale of up to 70% off on handpicked items that shoppers shouldn\u2019t miss, adding that \u201cemails like this are designed to exploit the urgency and excitement of seasonal sales to trick consumers into clicking potentially dangerous links.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such emails usually come with a link that redirects the victim to a fake online store website. If the victim tries to buy something, they likely lose money and whatever data they enter on the fake website \u2013 like payment details \u2013 are grabbed by the scammers and used for other fraudulent purposes, including unauthorized purchases.<\/p>\n

Other scams include fake limited-time surveys with prizes \u2013 often with a hyped sense of urgency, including saying the target is only among a \u201cselect\u201d handful of eligible users \u2013 aimed again at getting victims to make purchases and hand over information.<\/p>\n

\u201cA similar scheme goes for gift cards. Scammers offer a \u2018reward\u2019 for sharing some \u2018basic info,\u2019 such as an email address, and spending some money on a fake site,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

They also warned of fake mobile shopping apps and banking trojans, and noted that stolen shopping data often end up being sold on the dark web.<\/p>\n

Sellers are Also in the Crosshairs<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s not only shoppers who are at risk, according to Kaspersky. The researchers detected a fake verification scheme aimed at people registered as sellers on the Etsy platform. The scammers, armed with a copy of the company\u2019s seller database, sends emails to sellers saying their account is temporarily blocked and gives them a link to unlock it.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re directed to a fake website where they\u2019re asked to enter such data as bank card details \u2013 including the card numbers, expiration data, CVV, and billing address \u2013 for verification, and the scammer steal the data.<\/p>\n

SilkSpecter on the Prowl<\/h3>\n

Analysts with threat intelligence firm EclecticIQ said that in early October, they detected a phishing campaign run by a Chinese threat group called SilkSpecter<\/a> and targeting ecommerce shoppers in the United States and Europe looking for Black Friday discounts. The bad actors used fake products supposedly discounted by as much as 80% as lures in a phishing campaign to entice people to hand over their credit card and authentication data and personally identifiable information (PII).<\/p>\n

SilkSpecter used Stripe, a legitimate payment processor, which \u201callowed genuine transactions to be completed while covertly exfiltrating sensitive CHD [cardholder data] to a server controlled by the attackers,\u201d they wrote in a report<\/a>. \u201cSilkSpecter enhanced the phishing site\u2019s credibility by using Google Translate to dynamically adjust the website’s language based on each victim\u2019s IP location, making it appear more convincing to an international audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the victims landed on a page hoping to get exclusive deals, the group\u2019s phishing kit deployed several website trackers to collect activity logs, capture browser metadata like IP addresses and geolocation information. Victims also were prompted to enter their phone numbers, which the analysts said SilkSpecter could exploit in subsequent voice or text phishing attacks.<\/p>\n

Fake Ads and Spoofed Sites<\/h3>\n

Trend Micro researchers outlined four scams<\/a>, including fake ads and spoofed websites leveraging The North Face brand, gift card scams from bad actors posting as Sam\u2019s Club, and delivery scams that appear to come from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), customers, or another delivery service.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Malwarebytes researchers warned of efforts they\u2019ve detected<\/a>, including brand impersonation scams via the Chinese ecommerce site Temu, Amazon, Walmart, and USPS, and credit card skimmers on online stores, especially smaller retailers. Skimmers are pieces of malware injected into a website most often through security flaws in content management systems or plugins on the site itself.<\/p>\n

The skimmers are used to steal credit card data and Malwarebytes saw an uptick in the use of them last year.<\/p>\n

In addition, the use of malvertising \u2013 or malicious advertising \u2013 is growing, with the cybersecurity firm seeing a 41% jump from July to September as the holiday shopping season drew near.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the actual advertiser accounts that are used in malvertising campaigns, most are based in the US and are set up using a combination of fake identities or hijacked accounts,\u201d the researchers wrote. \u201cHowever, according to our research findings, ads originating in Pakistan and Vietnam account for 90% of the fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vigilance, MFA are Urged<\/h3>\n

Much of the advice security firms give urges shoppers to use their common sense \u2013 if a deal looks too good, it probably is, don\u2019t get rushed into making a decision, and protect online accounts by using strong and varied passwords and multifactor authentication (MFA) when possible.<\/p>\n

They also recommend using ad and malicious content blockers, research websites, check the site\u2019s URL,<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack Friday scams commonly spread through social media, search engine ads and, most frequently, mass email campaigns,\u201d Kaspersky researchers wrote. \u201cAs Black Friday continues to be a major shopping event, it also remains a source of profit for cybercriminals looking to exploit consumers and businesses alike. Scammers capitalize on the urgency and high traffic surrounding Black Friday sales, with phishing campaigns harder to spot among streams of other limited time offers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scammers are using everything from fraudulent deals and fake ads to spoofed websites and brand impersonation to target online shoppers who are gearing up for Black Friday as the holiday buying season gets underway, according to cybersecurity firms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20461,"featured_media":2019993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,23406,98344,13571,782,21858,308,30691,23435,518,14089,14098,30205,14097,98631,99462,99461,21029,13418,14096],"tags":[28964,81754,81189,14071],"class_list":["post-2037038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cloud-security","category-blogs","category-data-privacy","category-data-security","category-endpoint","category-sb-featured","category-identity-access","category-sb-industry-spotlight","category-malware","category-mobile-security","category-network-security","category-sb-news","category-security-awareness","category-sb","category-social-facebook","category-social-linkedin","category-social-x","category-social-engineering","category-sb-spotlight","category-threat-intelligence","tag-black-friday","tag-impersonation-attacks","tag-online-shopping-scams","tag-phishing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlack Friday Scammers are Hard at Work: Security Experts - 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