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E-shopping, streaming scams double amid quarantine

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 15 Apr 2020

Researchers from Kaspersky have warned of a rapid growth of phishing attacks worldwide with Web sites imitating popular online shopping and streaming services.

“Comparing the numbers for Q1 2019 and the same period this year, the share of users attacked by fake e-shops doubled, growing from 9 to 18%, of users, while the figure for streaming services tripled up to 4%," the company says in a statement.

With millions of people staying home to help stem the spread of the virus, online streaming and e-markets are becoming increasingly popular. And attackers follow the trends too, casting out lures for popular online activities.

"While streaming services and online shopping are a blessing in times of strict quarantine, providing us with essentials and entertainment, straying from the protected portals of our favourite legitimate streaming services for films, games and other content, will play into the hands of cyber criminals and may leave the public vulnerable to attack,” says Tatiana Sidorina, security researcher at Kaspersky.

She says as tempting as it may be to find alternate sources of content, Kaspersky advises users to be patient and stick to trusted streaming sources, and be extra vigilant at this time.

Black SEO

According to Sidorina, there are a variety of ways to happen upon a phishing Web site. More often than not, the user is redirected there from another Web site or via a scam e-mail.

It also happens via search engines, and despite efforts from their developers, bad actors still manage to insert their fake pages using "Black SEO" instruments.

These, Sidorina says, are the actions malefactors take to improve the fake site's position in search results using methods that are prohibited or not sanctioned by search engines. Black optimisation trick search robots to allow sites with content that is irrelevant to the user's request to get to the top of the search results.

Kaspersky urged users stick to trusted sources, “such as services for which you have a subscription, and double-checking the URL format or company name spelling before downloading anything”, to type the URL into the browser instead of clicking on links in e-mails, and to use a unique, complex password for each online account.

In addition, the company advises to use a credit card for payments and to avoid saving card details to the streaming site. “Be wary of deals that seem too good to be true, they usually are.”

Over 2 million COVID-19 cases have been reported in 200 countries and regions since last December, according to Worldometer COVID-19 Data. More than 127 000 people have died so far.

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