Black Friday sale threat: How to stay safe online

The biggest sales day of the year – Black Friday 2018 is here and is expected to be bigger than ever, with up to $90.14 billion expected to be spent over the long weekend.

While we are ready to seize the best deals during our holiday shopping spree, cyber criminals too are leveraging the opportunity to lure online shoppers with too-good-to-be-true offers to bank in millions.

Before you start filling your online shopping carts, you need to be aware of some potential cyber security pitfalls. Mohit Puri, Director sales engineering at Sophos India & SAARC has some advice to help protect you online through the shopping event of the year.

-Use a web filter. Web filters; stop you from browsing to websites that are known to be used for scams, phishing or spreading malware.

-Use a password manager. Never hit Save Passwords for any site, use Password managers instead. It creates, remembers and enters passwords for you, and won’t enter your password into a phishing site, no matter how convincing it looks.

-If it looks too good to be true, it is. To lure shoppers, scammers make wild claims and use familiar brands or friends and family to make them seem trustworthy. Stay alert, and if something seems off, it probably is.

-Check your bank statements regularly. You can reduce the chance that you’ll become the victim of a scam but you can’t eliminate it, so make a habit of checking your bank statements regularly.