While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are known for notoriously inexpensive prices on shopping items, did you know that these days are also notorious for identity theft?On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the Friday and Monday following Thanksgiving, consumers are dishing out the big bucks, so they may not notice a few extra charges on their bill. Therefore it is a perfect time of identity thieves to strike.
American consumers lost approximately $1.2 billion last year to due to identity theft and fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Here's an advisory from Webroot talking about those online threats...
Webroot Threat Advisory: Online Threats to Increase This Holiday Season
Cyber Crime Projected to Spike on Cyber Monday
BOULDER, Colo. (Business Wire EON/PRWEB ) November 18, 2008 --
Webroot®, a leading provider of security solutions for the consumer, enterprise and SMB markets, is warning online shoppers of an increase in cyber threats this holiday season. The online holiday shopping season, and the peak of these online threats, is expected to hit its highest point on “Cyber Monday,” the day after the Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S., and continue through the holiday shopping season.
Shopping online can be a lot easier and save time, especially during the holidays, but people need to make sure they have the right protection in place so they don't enter the New Year as a victim of identity theft.
"Last year we saw an 87 percent increase in malicious URLs between October and December. These sites are typically used to trick shoppers into giving their credit or debit card numbers, or to download malware," said Peter Watkins, CEO of Webroot.
Though overall holiday sales this year are expected to decline, a recent report by eMarketer estimates that online holiday season sales will reach $32 billion in 2008, up 10 percent over 2007. The report states that in order to save money on holiday gifts, consumers will turn to the Internet to get gift ideas, find bargains and that shoppers will shift a larger share of their purchases from stores to the Internet to save gas.
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