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Black Friday (shopping)
Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November), often regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In recent years, most major retailers have opened very early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth nations. Black Friday is not a holiday, but California and some other states observe "The Day After Thanksgiving" as a holiday for state government employees, sometimes in lieu of another federal holiday such as Columbus Day. Read More:- Click Here or go on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping)
Cyber Monday
Millions of shoppers will be searching for online bargains over the next week.
Holiday Shopping season is really an excited time for both shoppers and retailers, but unfortunately it's a good time for cyber criminals and scammers as well.
With Black Friday (28th November 2014) and Cyber Monday (1st December 2014) coming up, you need to be more careful while shopping. These are the two very busy shopping days where shoppers spend millions online.
Every eye will be on retailers to ensure that consumers' online shopping experiences are straightforward and, most importantly, secure. So, at the major part, retailers need to pay attention to extra security measures in order to prevent themselves from massive data breaches, like Target data breach that occurred last year during the Black Friday sales in which over 40 million Credit & Debit cards were stolen.
Not just Target alone, multiple retailers including Neiman Marcus, Michaels Store were also targeted during last Christmas holiday, involving the heist of possibly 110 million Credit-Debit cards, and personal information.
So, in an effort to secure yourself from scammers you need to be aware of some top scams and tips to keep yourself safe online.
1.Typosquatting and copycat websites (FAKE WEBSITES)
In your rush to track down the hottest deals, make sure you're typing carefully – your fingers can betray you.
A while back we deliberately misspelled the addresses of popular websites to see what we'd find.
There are literally thousands of websites that use what we call "typosquatting" to stake claim to addresses that closely resemble legitimate domains like Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft.
Many of these websites were hosting questionable contests or ads for dodgy services, while others hosted malware that can infect your computer just by browsing to these sites.
For websites you visit frequently, it's a good idea to save the real website in your favorites, so if you're in a rush to get to Amazon.com you can browse there automatically and avoid ending up somewhere dangerous because of a mis-typed web address.
2. The bait and switch (no, you won't be getting a free iPhone 6)
The year's most popular gadget, the iPhone 6, is sure to be on a lot of wish lists this Christmas, along with other popular but pricey smartphones, tablets and laptops.
So it's understandably a big temptation to believe online promotions promising "free" iPhones and the like.
One of the scams we've seen recently on Facebook uses a "free" iPhone 6 as the bait in a bait-and-switch scam that asks you to "like" a page in order to get your free phone.
Except there is no free phone, as you'll find out once you click – the "switch" part is the survey you're asked to fill out to make the scammers money in a pay-per-click scheme.
If a free iPhone 6 sounds too good to be true, that's because it is too good to be true.
3. Faux charity rip-offs
You might be feeling charitable at this time of year, but sadly, there are individuals who will take advantage of your good intentions in order to rip you off.
Fake charities can look legitimate, and often prey on those looking to make a quick contribution to those in need.
For example, a couple of years ago when Japan was rocked by a devastating earthquake and tsunami, millions of people around the world wanted to help.
But we found fake charities exploiting the tragedy, including spam messages claiming to be from the Red Cross that asked you to send money to a Yahoo email address via an e-payment website.
If you're tempted to help those in need, make sure you're sending donations to legitimate charities: don't follow links in emails and make sure to visit the charity's website for information about donating safely.
4. Advance fee fraud
Holiday time can be a lonely time for some people, and if you're looking for love online you need to watch out for scammers using one of the oldest tricks in the conman arsenal.
This type of scam often targets very vulnerable people, including the elderly.
Called "advance fee fraud," this scam involves a newfound "friend" asking for financial help.
If you're asked to send money to someone you've never met, with a pledge that you'll be paid back, perhaps even with a profit, don't believe it.
5. Unexpected delivery of "gifts"
Watch out for spam emails claiming to come from your national postal service or shipping companies like DHL, Fedex and UPS.
They could be phishing emails, which will ask you to visit a website set up by cybercriminals to steal your personal information like email addresses, passwords, credit card numbers and more.
Emails can also carry unwanted "gifts" - such as the notorious ransomwareknown as CryptoLocker, which scrambles all the files on your computer and demands a ransom of $300 to $500 to set them free.
CryptoLocker has seen a resurgence in recent months, despite a takedown by law enforcement in May 2014 that knocked out the servers used by the crypto-criminals.
Be careful about opening attachments you receive by email - that special delivery could end up costing you.
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