Please be careful folks. Many of us shop online and use such mega outlets as Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us and delivery services such as FedEx, UPS and DHL.

The scammers will be sending out phony delivery confirmation notices, and ads especially those with attachments like html and pdfs.

Mouse over those links and examine them! If the offers are too good to be true, they are. If you go to those pages, you risk malware infection.

These aren’t theoretical dangers. Proofpoint (http://www.proofpoint.com/threatinsight/posts/holiday-shopping-season-equal-more-threat-campaigns-but-will-users-click.php) (http://hothardware.com/News/Careful-What-You-Click-Cybercriminals-Preying-on-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-Shoppers/)has already found such false notifications. There will be more. Btw, I deliberately put those links in that form.

When you mouse over a link, make sure it’s a https link or one which will go DIRECTLY to UPS, FedEx. etc.

Incidentally, the misleading notifications are preferentially targeting mobile devices over desktops. Indeed, smartphones are the least secure method of online purchase.

Worsening the problem is the consumer demand to streamline the purchasing process, bypassing verification steps in the effort to make the consumer process “better” or “smoother”.

Sources:

http://hothardware.com/News/Careful-What-You-Click-Cybercriminals-Preying-on-Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-Shoppers/

http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/2013/11/27/scammers-take-aim-at-black-friday-cyber-monday/3764331/

http://www.infopackets.com/news/security/2013/20131128_beware_fake_delivery_notice_scam_this_black_friday.htm