How to stop your data from being stolen this holiday

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With the holidays fast approaching, online consumers are increasingly putting their data at risk without even realizing it. And this is a trend that’s only projected to increase — by 2017, total online retail sales in the U.S. are projected to reach approximately $370 billion. With such a large pool of potential victims, fraudsters and cyber criminals are bound to be on the prowl, and you could be in their crosshairs.

Given this, it’s imperative that consumers avoid the “holiday shopping trap” and learn to think critically about what they’re doing online. In order to do this, they need not only to know how their data can be stolen, but what they can do to protect themselves online. Here, then, is a quick primer on how your data could be stolen while shopping online during the holidays and what you can do to stop it.

How Criminals Steal Data from Online Shoppers

There are many ways that cyber criminals will go about pilfering online shoppers’ data, and they’ve been very successful overall. In 2012, $21 billion was stolen through online identity theft. During this period of time, victims of identity theft rose to more than 12 million — an increase of 1 million when compared to the previous year. Thus, as these fraudsters grow more sophisticated, it’s important for consumers to know some of the more common tactics. Here are three of the major ones:

Botnet and DDoS Attacks

Both botnet and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are common tactics for identity thieves.  A botnet involves huge networks of infected machines, which are controlled by a hacker and used for nefarious purposes. These networks are related to DDoS attacks, because these machines are often used as part of a coordinated effort to knock a website (or host) offline. Such attacks have been known to be used as cover to distract financial institutions during account takeovers and other fraud schemes.

In any event, consumers will want to take precautions to avoid having their machines become part of a botnet network. Among other things, botnets can be used to steal personal data from an infected host, or your computer’s processing power could be used to create even more identity theft victims by assaulting other networks.

According to this Cyber Monday identity theft infographic from Hotspotshield, this type of attack is 83% likely to happen on Cyber Monday alone, and 72% of companies will find it difficult to detect these attacks. And when you extrapolate those chances to account for the entire holiday season, the numbers become truly staggering.

Hacking Mobile Platforms

During the past couple years, the hacking of mobile platforms has been rising at an incredibly fast rate. According to recent reports, more than 1 million types of malware and high-risk apps are now in circulation for the Android mobile platform. While iOS devices are less vulnerable to attack (primarily because of their closed development ecosystem), they aren’t immune to risk either.
Some of this malware is designed for stealing your personal information, either by logging your keystrokes or by tricking you into directly divulging your financial data. Experts recommend that you be careful about clicking on links in emails, to exercise caution in downloading apps.

Spear Phishing Scams

This particular type of fraud essentially works like regular phishing attacks. It involves spoofing the email address of a well-known company with an expansive userbase (e.g. Amazon or eBay), and then tricking recipients into disclosing passwords, usernames, and/or financial information. However, this is a particular type of phishing where attackers use specific data about their victims to increase their likelihood of succeeding.

These phishing attempts can come in the form of an email from a friend or even from your boss. This type of attack flourishes on your sense of comfort and familiarity with the supposed sender — the false sense of security can easily lead you to making an uncalculated mistake. And if you’ve fallen victim to this type of attack, you wouldn’t be alone. These cyber criminals have become sophisticated enough to affect large organizations; back in August, for example, PCWorld reported recently that spear phishing lead to a DNS attack against the New York Times and other news outlets.
If a fraudster gets access to your credit card details by means of spear phishing (or some other similar method), you can expect that there’s a 64% probability that they’ll be testing your card during the holiday shopping season. Likewise, approximately 66% of companies report that they’ll encounter difficulty in detecting these attempts.

Ways that Consumers can Stay Safe Online

So now that you’ve seen some of the primary methods that cyber criminals will be using to steal your data during the holiday season, it’s time to start looking at some ways to stay safe. Part of this involves conscientiously refraining from getting a case of so-called “holiday shopping tunnel vision.” It’s easy to fall under the hypnotic spell of all those “too-good-to-be-real” deals and run headlong into a cyber-criminal’s trap. With that being said, here are some ways to substantially decrease your chances of becoming a holiday identity theft victim.

Installing Security Software

The first and most fundamental thing you can do to protect yourself involves installing security software onto all the devices you use for online shopping. It’s equally important to download all the patches and updates for your security software to ensure the threat database is up to date. You should also have all the latest updates and patches for your operating system and browser to eliminate any potential security holes that could be exploited by hackers.

According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2013 eCommerce Cyber Crime Report, only roughly 33% of online retailers are taking any special actions to ensure site integrity remains intact during the holiday season. The onus of protection clearly lies with the consumer; therefore, you should make sure all your security software and updates are installed before doing any serious online holiday shopping.

Being Smart with Home & Public WiFi

Believe it or not, your WiFi connection is often another point of attack when it comes to this type of cyber-crime. For optimal security on your home network, you should tweak your router’s settings. Ideally, you’ll have WPA2 encryption enabled and your firewall activated. You also should have a strong password set up and, for extra protection, you can disable the SSID broadcast on your router as well.

If you’re surfing on a public WiFi connection, then your security concerns are even higher. Because public WiFi is insecure by its very nature, your best bet is to completely avoid online shopping when connected to one of these networks. However, if you absolutely must, make sure you double-check the network name is the one you’re really intending to use. You should also disable file-sharing and use a virtual private network (VPN) to ensure all of your activity is encrypted.

Shopping on Reputable Sites

For safe online shopping this holiday season, consumers should be sure to shop only on reputable sites. These include high-profile e-commerce platforms like Amazon and brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy or Walmart (just for example). When shopping these sites, you should always confirm the URL is correct — fraudsters will often use fake URLs that are similar to those of well-known stores and brands. In the checkout phase, keep an eye out for an https:// prefix, an SSL certificate, and a padlock icon.

As some experts have noted, Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday season are nothing less than the Super Bowl of online theft. Although online shoppers should be aware of these tactics and tips no matter what time of year, it’s crucial to exercise additional caution during the holidays. By following these suggestions and using a little common sense, consumers can greatly decrease their chances for becoming a victim of a financially devastating cybercrime. Have you ever had your identity or financial details stolen as a result of holiday online shopping? Tell us your experiences in the comments below.

About Post Author

Abigail Clark

Abigail Clark is an upcoming freelance writer. She graduated from The University of South Florida with a bachelors in marketing, minoring in journalism. When she isn’t up to her neck in coupons she is enjoying the outdoors fishing. She loves doing reviews for technology, home products and beauty products. If you would like her to do a review for you look her up on twitter @downtownabby17.
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10 years ago

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10 years ago

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