In the world we live, there is a necessity for us to show our love and care for our loved ones. Gifts are almost the perfect way to express our love and to make our loved ones feel special. Therefore, we often look for occasions when we can share gifts. As these occasions prove to be high yielding season for online shopping, technical scammers also don’t leave any stone unturned for scamming these customers.
Valentine’s Day is celebrated worldwide by the lovebirds and to cherish the event, couples gift each other different stuff to show their love and care towards each other. As online shopping is booming everywhere on the globe, couples too find the internet an better option to shop for their beloved. But Lovebirds, be warned!
To take the advantage of this rising-in-demand online shopping, spammers and scammers are making great efforts. The spam run is so high that the famous tech portal, Trend Micro has revealed around 117 different sender IPs that are running spams related with Valentine’s Day. Most of these spammed emails primarily come from the United States, followed by India, Ukraine, Canada, and the Netherlands. This flock of Valentine’s Day-themed emails can come in different languages, such as: English, German, Chinese, etc. With the emails, spammers gifts their recipients links to amazing, but fake, shopping discounts, dating sites that are actually scams, and spam-vertisements (advertisements seen inside spammed emails).
Valentine’s Day offers spammers and scammers a great opportunity of luring people into shelling out their hard-earned money or giving away their personal information under the deceptive veil of love. That said, as a computer user you do not need to panic with the thoughts of Valentine’s Day security. You just need be little vigilant while buying gifts online or opening an e-card from that special someone.
As the Valentine’s Day approaches closer our inbox generally gets flooded with emails about lucrative offers and high-end products on highly discounted prices. By the time you land on a webpage by following the link provided in such mails, your details are shared with the sender. You get scammed.
There are some basic precautions you can take in order to save yourself from cyberattack. While shopping online, you must keep following points in your mind:
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Do not follow the links from unreliable and unknown sender.
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Do not disclose your personal details on a webpage you don’t know or trust.
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Always remember that phishing sites can impersonate authorized websites by copying their login page but scammers can’t copy the URL. So, always keep a check on the URLs to make sure that the website you are visiting is genuine.
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Never share your passwords via email. Try to keep separate password for each account.
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Install an anti-phishing browser add-on or genuine antivirus software with realtime web protection so that it can warn you when you are on suspected phishing sites.
E-card is also an amazing, easy and friendly way of sending your lovable wishes to dear ones. But if you are receiving an e-card then you must take following steps for protecting yourself from spam.
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Always crosscheck the sender’s email address. Avoid unknown luring messages.
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Never click on the link you are unsure of the sender or its intent.
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Don’t click or download anything from an unknown source.
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Always be cautious of attachment formats and size.
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Use established greeting cards portals and it is recommended that you ignore the ones you have never heard of.
Most of the scammers and spammers are technical masters. They usually rides on the mistakes and carelessness of the users. If you are vigilant and active about your web browsing, chances are very few that someone would be able to cyberattack you. In any case, we always recommend installing genuine antivirus in your PC and regularly update it.
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