Attention: Black Friday spam is about to start

The upcoming Black Friday on November 26 is making itself felt in cybersecurity. Hackers are increasingly attacking end consumers with online shopping fraud attempts.

Advertisement

The telemetry data from Bitdefender Labs also documented an increased occurrence of shopping spam messages in Germany in November. Further highlights of such broadcasts can be expected for Black Friday and for Cyber ​​Monday, which is also becoming increasingly popular in Germany.

The strong online shopping trend amid the pandemic has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals. Since the beginning of November, they have been launching test campaigns to fine-tune their e-mail scam campaigns, make financial gains now, or steal access credentials. Even if the majority of emails are written in English and the spam trend around Black Friday is mainly taking place in the USA, there are also German examples of online fraud. Among the non-English-speaking countries, Germany is at the top in terms of both the occurrence and origin of scams.

Online shopping scam also in Germany

The Bitdefender experts observed a peak in English-language shopping spam and scam mails from November 8th to 11th (Figure 1). In the US, travel deals ahead of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday helped fuel this trend.

Image 1: Evolution of English-language spam from November 8th to 11th, 2021. (Image source: Bitdefender)

If you exclude the USA, Germany ranks third behind Ireland and Great Britain in terms of the geographical distribution of fraudulent shopping emails: Six percent of the emails related to Black Friday worldwide spread in Germany (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Geographical distribution of English language shopping scam emails from November 8th to 11th, 2021. (Image source: Bitdefender)

Germany also plays an important role as the country of origin: 44 percent of the emails have a North American IP address as the sender, but six percent also have a German one (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Origin of shopping scam emails from November 8th to 11th, 2021. (Image source: Bitdefender)

Obviously, spam scam content is often a tempting special offer (see image 4 following the report).

Subscribe to the smart news from the IT world now! 💌

Please enter a valid e-mail address.

Unfortunately there was a problem sending the form. Please try again.

By clicking on the "Subscribe to the newsletter" button, I agree to the data protection declaration.

Almost finished!

Please confirm your email address!Click on the link in the email we just sent you. Also check the spam folder and whitelist us.

More information about the newsletter.

Increase your own safety with simple means

Private users can do a lot for their secure online shopping. It starts with the cyber security software. The protection of mobile devices, which are used for shopping, is indispensable. However, according to the Bitdefender study 2021 Bitdefender Global Report: Cybersecurity and Online Behaviors, one in three users still does not consider this to be necessary for a variety of reasons. Bitdefender has recently added several features to its home user solutions.

Prudent management is just as important in order not to become a victim of the highly professional cyber gangs. Every consumer should be aware of their online activities, assess their personal security risks and protect their online accounts right now.

The following tips will help to reduce your own risk when shopping on your computer or smartphone:

Image 5: Example of a spam offer with a supposed LIDL voucher. (Image source: Bitdefender)

www.bitdefender.de