Christmas Shopping: Be Wary of Online Fraudsters

With Christmas approaching, many people see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a great way to save money and find cheap deals. However, Action Fraud, the City of London Police and Get Safe Online have joined together to launch a campaign to raise awareness and warn people about the increased risks of online crime.

Online fraudsters see the christmas period as a great opportunity to manipulate the high traffic shopping periods, with shoppers and businesses losing nearly double the amount of money last christmas compared with 2013. Following these worrying statistics, Action Fraud, the City of London Police and Get Safe Online have decided to act with a 10 day campaign which was launched on the 23rd of November, giving tips to help people avoid being tricked this christmas. One of the main focal points of this campaign is to warn customers that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

It is also noted that the most fraudulent products are smartphones, followed by fashion items and electricals.

At Perpetuity, our current Security Research Initiative (SRI) project is based on the growing threat posed by online crime. We are looking at ‘Tackling Cyber Crime – the role of of private security’ in order to better understand what private security can do to address cyber crime, including the difficulties and opportunities cyber crime poses.

To read more about our current SRI project and access previous reports that are available, please click here.

If you are a security professional, make sure you keep an eye out for our survey for the project next week.