Cybercriminals are known to always take advantage of any latest trend to perform illicit activities. As the culture lies, every end of the year marketer’s offer out their product at a very low discounted rate so as to clear their stores and prepare for the new-year season.
This trend which has become a global act draws out many buyers who
throng online stores to get the best rate. However, a new report suggests that
many online shoppers might download app malicious apps pretending to be the
original and fall prey to hackers during the Black Friday season.
According to Digital threat management company RiskIQ, over
32,000 malicious mobile apps are using the branding of the top-five online
retailers to trick online shoppers into downloading them so as to steal logins
and credit card information.
RiskIQ which used internet reconnaissance and analytics to
identify the digital threats against the eCommerce companies, explained that
those apps seek to trick shoppers into giving up Gmail, Facebook, credit card
credentials or even download an information stealing malware or ransomware.
Of the 4,356 black Friday
themed apps available in app stores, malicious apps makes up four percent of
the total apps (which means there exist a malicious app in every 25 apps). Each
of the top five brands have at least 15 malicious apps that use their name and
branding alongside the ‘Black Friday’
term.
Also to note, the top-five
retail brands have black listed a combined figure of more than 1,451 malicious
URLS that contain their brand terms and Black Friday. It is worth to note that
these malicious links are linked to spam or phishing.
To avoid falling for this
scam, RiskIQ recommends that shoppers make download only from official app
stores. The consumer spending for this years Black Friday is expected to be up
by 47 percent compared to last year, make no mistake because cybercriminals
would never stop until they enough hervest.