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Number of phishing attacks on online payments triples ahead of Black Friday — Kaspersky

In particular, hackers imitated a well-known supermarket and sent messages to users with a proposal to take part in a survey, allegedly to improve the company's service

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The number of phishing attacks targeting online payments worldwide in October 2021, ahead of the sell-out season and Black Friday, soared by 208% compared to September, the press service of Kaspersky Lab reported on Thursday.

"The total number of such threats around the world has more than tripled from September to October 2021, increasing by 208%," the company said.

In total, the company's experts recorded over 40 million phishing attacks on online stores and financial institutions during the ten months of 2021.

In particular, hackers imitated a well-known supermarket and sent messages to users with a proposal to take part in a survey, allegedly to improve the company's service. They promised people prizes, including in cash for participation in the survey.

"Attackers always adjust their schemes to the current agenda and the start of the sales season and Black Friday proved no exception. We see that today hackers often disguise themselves as electronic payment pages and online stores. To make sure that you are safe you should check that the website really belongs to the brand: the name of the address coincides with the official one, and the URL starts with HTTPS," Tatyana Shcherbakova, senior content analyst at the Kaspersky Lab, said as quoted by the press service.

Experts recommend not clicking on dubious links in mail, instant messengers or social networks, as well as not clicking on advertising banners on suspicious sites, getting a separate card for online shopping, and setting daily withdrawal limits. In addition, you need to check the domain information on special services if the online store is unknown.

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