Money move: Sign up for text and email alerts from your bank. Yes, it’s a bit annoying to approve purchases, but this has notified me a few times someone got their hands on my card. In your banking app, go into Settings and look for Alerts or Notifications. Smart move, for sure.
Don't fall for these Prime Day scams
Everyone’s pumped for this year’s Amazon Prime Day — including scammers. Last year, shoppers worldwide bought over 300 million items, giving criminals many opportunities to swoop in and steal information.
These crafty crooks have plenty of tricks up their sleeve, especially when it comes to phishing attacks. To avoid their schemes and order those Prime Day deals without a side of identity fraud, keep on reading.
It’s Prime time
Cybersecurity provider Check Point put together some eye-opening research around Amazon Prime Day and the associated scams. They found that Amazon Prime phishing campaigns grew 16 times higher in June compared to May.
Overall, Amazon-related phishing activity increased by 8%. Clearly, the bad guys are doing some hard-core prepping for game day.
Within that window, roughly 1,500 new web domains related to the word “Amazon” were discovered. A whopping 92% of these websites were found to be suspicious or flat-out malicious.
One out of every 68 new domains related to “Amazon” were explicitly associated with Prime, and 93% of those websites were deemed uber-sketchy.
Gone phishin’
Phishing scams come in all shapes and sizes. They typically come in the form of fake emails or bogus websites with the end goal of stealing your personal information or financial credentials.
Phishing emails are made to look like they’ve been sent from someone you know or a reputable organization (like Amazon). The phishing attacks are carried out through links, attachments or forms within the emails. Cybercriminals can steal personal info once a person clicks on a malicious link or opens the attachment.
You can usually spot phishing emails if there are a ton of misspellings or wonky-looking fonts, logos and layouts. However, crooks have been learning from their mistakes and making emails look more authentic.
Here are some examples of the kinds of phishing scams to look out for on Prime Day:
Tech how-to: Pay with your phone using Apple Wallet
Apple Wallet is today’s solution to carrying around a billfold or purse full of credit and debit cards. This virtual pocketbook, along with Apple Pay, comes native to your iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, iPod touch and Mac.