Black Friday Cyber Scams Increase Exponentially

Published On: December 15, 2024Categories: Buzz

Darktrace has revealed a surge in retail cyber-attacks, according to research developed by the UK-based cybersecurity vendor.

Analysis from Darktrace’s threat intelligence team using data from across the Darktrace customer fleet shows that during Black Friday week (25th to 29th November 2024) attempted Christmas-themed phishing attacks leapt 327% around the world, while Black Friday themed phishing attacks jumped 692%.

The United States retail sector faced an especially aggressive wave of cyber threats, with phishing attacks mimicking major brands, such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy.

“The festive shopping season creates a perfect storm for cyber criminals,” says Nathaniel Jones, VP of Threat Research at Darktrace. “Consumers are primed to expect floods of retail deals, while retailers are processing tremendous transaction volumes at speed. This combination makes spotting suspicious patterns more challenging than at any other part of the year. Bad actors taking advantage of that with brand impersonation is nothing new, but the rapidly growing volume of those attacks makes them a real worry. Both consumers and brands need to be increasingly alert to potential scams, but we can all take heart that big name retailers have some of the most sophisticated protections possible to help safeguard their customers, and technologies like AI cybersecurity, that spot spoofs and attacks that humans wouldn’t, are catching and stopping more of these attacks than ever before.”

Darktrace’s findings demonstrate that the most effective attacks are multi-stage: brand impersonation emails lead unsuspecting shoppers directly to websites that look like the retailer but harvest login or payment details, creating a seamless deception that hands personal and financial data directly to attackers.

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Partners can assist their clients in setting up alerts to track mentions of the client’s brand and warn of counterfeit websites and fraudulent domains. Several other brand and payment protection tools can also be implemented.

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