Valentine’s Day is considered one of the most romantic days of the year to propose, and the popularity of buying engagement rings online ahead of this holiday is actively used by cybercriminals.
As couples prepare to celebrate with flowers, love letters, and carefully selected gifts, cybercriminals are setting up fake websites, offering perfect bouquets, beautiful engagement rings, or even tech gadgets.
Read:5 Online Shops to Purchase Valentine’s Gifts
Flowers are one of the major symbols of February 14th. Around 250 million roses are grown specifically for Valentine’s Day every year.
In a scam scheme spotted by Kaspersky, fraudsters do not even try to mimic the stores of famous brands; they create standalone fake websites with tempting offers and time-limited discounts. Vivid product images and beautiful descriptions aim to lower the user’s vigilance. Cybercriminals can exploit consumer trust to lure unsuspecting buyers into paying for orders that are never fulfilled.
These fake online stores claim to offer famous technical brands’ products for Valentine’s Day. They try to capitalize on brand prominence and the popularity of this type of gift simultaneously.
Kaspersky experts detected a fake website that closely mimics Amazon offering customers great deals on jewellery. The fraudulent scheme, aimed at stealing users’ Amazon credentials, encourages customers to enter their Amazon login and password, inadvertently compromising their account details to cybercriminals. This results in marketplace account takeover, potentially leading to other phishing attacks or personal and banking data leaks.
Whether you are buying jewellery, flowers, the latest consumer technology, or anything else online, beware of offers that seem a little too good to be true.
Kaspersky experts also provided additional advice to be followed in order to make online gift shopping safe:
- Check website URLs and domain names. In case of any doubts about a site’s authenticity, it’s highly recommended to browse for the official link.
- Be cautious about advertising offers coming from email. Phishing links leading to fake shops are frequently distributed through spam mailings.
- Avoid revealing personal and banking data. Only provide sensitive details on secure, verified platforms
Check: How to protect your heart and money from Romantic Phishing
”Holiday time is always marked with the large number of scams. Fraudulent schemes are mostly standard; however, they are highly adaptable to all emerging trends.” Olga Svistunova, a security expert at Kaspersky, advises, “Being cautious when receiving favorable offers and tremendous discounts online is crucially important. It is advisable to verify website addresses and avoid entering your personal information or banking details on suspicious sites in order to protect yourself from potential scams.”
