Seasonal scams are not a myth, and during this Christmas and end-of-year holiday season, hackers are not shy about getting spam out of their hoods, particularly in France.
There’s no rest for the brave, they say, and neither for hackers, especially around Christmas time. The Bitdefender Lab warns of seasonal scams, which are increasing at the end of the year. Carrefour, Kadéos, Louis Vuitton or even Alibaba… there is no shortage of usurped brands and brands used to scam consumers using spam, for good old email phishing. Here are some of their tactics.
Holiday-themed cyber attacks have exploded in recent weeks
Since December 5, Bitdefender has noticed an overall increase in Christmas-related spam. The cybersecurity specialist has also identified 30% of unsolicited holiday-themed messages sent between November 13 and December 12, 2023 as scams.
We already knew that hackers love France, but on the theme of Christmas, France proudly sits on the world podium! 32% of holiday spam comes from US IP addresses. Then follow France (18%), cocorico, and China (13%).
So how do these phishing attacks materialize? We find fake gift cards, offers and lottery prizes which each time have only one goal: to steal the personal and banking data of the targeted people.
Santa Claus is (also) a hacker who likes to usurp the biggest brands
As is often the case, pirates rely on the usurpation of major brands to commit their misdeeds. For example, we find a false order for Kadéos Edenred vouchers and gift cards for Christmas, promising you free management fees with a special code. And the email in question is pretty convincing.
Another technique consists of the hacker pretending to be Carrefour stores. It’s not very pretty and by being at least informed, you can quickly realize the deception, but the campaign here aims to make the victim believe that they can win a gift by responding to a quick survey.
Finally, Bitdefender shows us an email purportedly sent from Louis Vuitton, inviting Internet users to click on a link supposedly intended to give you more information about special Christmas sales.
Whether before, during or after the holidays, be careful in your browsing, and if in doubt, contact the brands via their official channels.
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