Among the many learning they left the pandemic and the confinement in 2020, one of those who were recorded on fire in our culture was the one we could buy all kinds of things comfortably online and have them at home without needing a foot beyond the doormat.
Thus, the percentage of Spaniards who made an online purchase during the past year reached 62.6% of people between 16 and 74 years, compared to 58% of 2019, according to INE's figures. In total, 93.6 million euros in purchases. But if electronic commerce is booming throughout the year, in the last quarter reaches stratospheric figures around the world.
Halloween, Singles Day, Black Friday, Christmas ... Any excuse is good for a whim or buy a gift in the last two months of the year. Hence, the e-commerce moved in that period last year 1.1 trillion dollars (980,000 euros) worldwide, compared to 723,000 million in 2019, according to a study by the US Software Software Company Salesforce.
The truth is that these events are a great opportunity for buyers and the e-commerce, but also for the cybercriminals, which each year do their August in November and December. «You know what is the most sensitive at a certain moment and seek to persuade the user to make a certain action: click on a link, provide data ...», explains Jorge Chinea, responsible for cybersecurity at the Incident Response Center of INCIBE SECURITY (INCIBE-CERT). "It's not a new technique. It is usually done, both with the death of some celebrity, as well as with the Black Friday, Olympics, World Football, Eurocopa ... "adds him.
Buyers make their eyes chiribitas with discounts of up to 90% and promotions stunning from the last weeks. Both, they clicked without hesitation in the links and the card at velocity of vertigo. But on many occasions, what is on the other side is not the chollo that expected, but a virus or a possible fraud based on the theft of our data and the impersonation of our identity.
«If emails are received with links to web pages with promises of great offers you have to verify that the link is really corresponding to the legitimate website and you have to distrust mail with links to collect unrealized orders or fabulous prizes. In that case, it is to be avoided to click on the link », recommend the specialists of the cybersecurity area of the company IBM.
Knowledge is the best weapon; A way to fight against fraud jointly with customers.
During 2020, the INCIBER-CERT managed 133,155 incidents of cybersecurity, of which 106,466 affected citizens and companies. Of these, 35.22% corresponded to malware ("any piece of software that carries out actions, such as data extraction and other type of alteration of the system," says Chinea); 32.02% to fraud by email (Phising), SMS (Smishing), phone call (VISHING) or other means; and 17.39% benefited from the fact that the victim had vulnerabilities on his computer, smartphone ...
According to John Sier, the main security adviser of the British Software and Hardware company Sophos, "The most common attack on these dates is still phishing, which in turn carries a series of possible secondary attacks," as "steal your credentials or Take you to install malware such as Keyloggers [a tracking system that records the keys that you press, for example, when you enter a password], banking trojans and ransomware [malware that blocks user files or devices and then claim an anonymous online payment to restore the access]".
In the latter case, losses can be tuned if you block hackers is your e-commerce in the morning days of the year, a kind of kidnapping more and more frequent. "They can be very varied, from denial of service attacks (DDoS) to the web pages of the shops that disable access to the page making it impossible for users to make their purchases; At the creation of FAKE web pages, which copy the aspect and have a URL similar to the real pages of the shops, which is known as Cybersquatting, "enables IBM's cybersecurity experts.
To those same sources consist of the efforts that companies are making to arm themselves: "The electronic commerce sector is increasingly aware of the economic and reputational impact of a possible cyber attack, so it is being reversed in the area of cybersecurity and, Specifically, to establish specific protection and detection measures for the type of more frequent threats ».
But there is no greater antivirus than citizens' caution, hence from specially affected sectors such as online banking, they want to be aware of how to avoid cyber attacks.
"We consider very important to inform our customers of this type of deception, with awareness campaigns and clear messages that allow them to be alert and maintain basic precautions so as not to fall into these traps," Exposes Carles Solé, Ciso de Santander Spain. "Knowledge is the best weapon; A way to fight against fraud jointly with customers ».
For this expert, four habits of technology use are the best vaccine against cybercrime. The first, think before clicking: «Suspect links, documents, emails ... of dubious source and, above all, of too good offers». The second, "Keep operating systems and applications updated. The third, "Be discreet online". And the fourth, «Use safe passwords, not share or write them down and seek to change them frequently», list Solé, which recommends modifying them to the minimum doubt about a possible attack, temporarily deactivate affected credit cards and denounce the police even in failed attacks .
Date Of Update: 07 December 2021, 21:33
