Posted on November 17, 2018 at 8:08 PM

Black Friday: Hackers Use Fake Apps to Scam Online Shoppers

Researchers have made a report on the attacks made to online store applications in order to scam buyers, and warn about possible scams for Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday 2018.

Hackers are looking for ways to earn the trust of buyers through apps created by them to steal your personal information.

In order to take advantage of the best season of the year such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday to make purchases with discounts people rush to the most recognized online stores, but also are days in which cyber criminals likewise they are pending to use mobile applications with which they can deceive the people who enter their personal and financial data to make purchases, and without these people noticing they steal their data and end up being scammed.

Friday Black, a great feast for hackers

Cybercriminals know that Black Friday is the day in which most people make their purchases and prepare to get great rewards because in 2017 it was estimated that purchases exceeded $19 billion, and in the 2018 people have increased with credit cards with risks of attacks.

As expected, computer criminals increase and evolve, making a large number of attacks throughout the year, reaching impressive numbers. It is estimated that for Black Friday there is an average of 5% of malicious applications of the 4,331 that have been analyzed.

Renowned stores are the most used to deceive the buyers

Although the report that has been made does not mention the names of the applications targeted by scams, companies such as Amazon and eBay are likely names, since they are brands that people prefer to make purchases. This type of activity can convert the confidence that people have in these large online stores, weakening their prestige.

Principal recommendation: only download reliable applications

The main recommendation to buyers is that they only download applications from official application stores such as Google Play and Apple’s App Store and stay alert to suspicious links that are published on social networks that relate to Black Friday.

Luis Corrons, who is an expert in Avast cyber-attacks, said that they have even found fake applications in the Google Play Store similar to the original ones, which use their logos to deceive those who download them. He also warned that these applications are just one of the many ways they use to scam online shoppers.

Despite even more the ridiculously low prices offered by unknown stores on social networks.

Although this day it is usual to find large discounts, you must take special care with those that are exaggeratedly less than their price.

It is very common for stores to advertise on social networks, and it is precisely this medium that is the most used to attack, so you must take special care and even more if they are stores with unknown names that surely offer prices below any other.