Author: Paul Sawers / Source: VentureBeat
Black Friday is fertile phishing ground for cybercriminals, with the usual dubious email scams, as well as rogue advertisements and “offers” spread through social media to glean personal data from thrifty consumers.
The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which constitutes part of the country’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency, has issued its first ever official Black Friday cyberthreat warning and will be taking to Twitter today to answer cybersecurity questions from the public via Twitter.
“Cybercriminals have a field day at this time of year because they know your guard is a little lower as you rush to bag the bargains,” NSCS noted in a blog post. “Your inbox is probably full of promotional emails promising the most incredible deals. And when this is the norm, it becomes hard to differentiate real bargains from the dodgy ones.”
And as retailers face a surge of consumer traffic, there could even be a higher risk of spurious activity slipping through their cyber blockades. For example, rogue hacker group Magecart has previously wreaked havoc at several major companies, including Ticketmaster and British Airways, by skimming customers’ personal payment information at the online checkout.
With Black Friday now in full swing — and also prevalent in countries that don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving — now is as good a time as any to talk about the state of cybersecurity.
The shortfall
The global cybersecurity market is expected to grow 12 percent to $114 billion in 2018 and to rise another 9 percent next year to around $124 billion, according to a recent Gartner report. And although consumers are often a major target for cybercriminals, attacks against businesses are particularly on the rise.
A recent Malwarebytes report found that detection of cybercriminal activity targeting businesses grew by 55 percent in Q3 compared to the previous quarter, while in the consumer realm the figure jumped by 4 percent.
The spread of mobile and internet of things devices across both the consumer and corporate realms will only increase the surface area through which hackers can gain entry to systems and private data hubs. The cybersecurity industry is trying to keep up, but it’s not an easy thing…
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