Computer Security Shoppers Should Beware of 2015 Black Friday and Cyber...

Shoppers Should Beware of 2015 Black Friday and Cyber Monday Malware

black friday cyber monday worst 2015 securityWith every year during the holiday season, it brings about family gatherings, full stomachs, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday malware and security threats at higher rates than ever before. That's right; we predict 2015 to be the worst year yet for shopper's security due to various malware threats, specifically point-of-sale threats targeting payment processing systems.

Point of Sale (PoS) malware threats has long been a major annoyance and gateway for cybercrooks to garner large sums of money at the expense of shoppers. Usually, PoS malware is stealthy where it remains to be hard to detect and used in broad campaigns targeting vulnerable systems that lack the necessary security patches and updates.

With a given checkout system, PoS malware can infiltrate the payment processing. Where some of the systems should be isolated from other networks, those attacked by PoS malware are connected allowing remote attackers to relinquish payment processing information through the malware threat.

Experts have divulged that most payment systems that are in constant use are seldom updated. Therefore, they are left vulnerable to PoS attacks. It wasn't that long ago that such a case occurred when the retailers Target and Home Depot were attacked, and cybercrooks made off with thousands of consumer credit card data. During that time, both retailers faced scrutiny for their lack of security measures put in place to prevent consumer data from landing in the hands of cybercriminals. Inevitably, the backlash was vast accounting for 11GB-worth of consumer data stolen.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday getting a start this week, cybercrooks are gearing up for a big "getaway" seeking out payment processing systems that are vulnerable. This year we could see an exponential rise in the occurrence of PoS attacks among other infiltrations that expose consumer credit card information and ends up costing retailers and victimized consumers nearly millions of dollars to rectify the situations.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), it is estimated that over 138 million Americans plan to shop on Thanksgiving weekend through Black Friday. The NRF also estimates that over 183 million people plan to shop on Cyber Monday, bringing a total hundreds of millions of people racking up sales at the dawn of the 2015 holiday season. The NRF says in recent postings on their resources site that their latest consumer spending survey finds that those shopping early is up by 54% this year compared to last year. With those staggering figures, cybercrooks have a wide open field of retails and consumers to target.

While the catch phrase "Cyber Monday" was coined in 2005, just ten years ago, the landscape of the "holiday" has vastly changed and grown since its conception. In the digital and online social age we live in currently, trends propagate like never before at unprecedented speeds. In knowing this, cybercrooks may take advantage of compromised payment systems over this holiday season to rack up record theft numbers.

What we can do as consumers to thwart cybercriminal activity is to consistently monitor our accounts and be mindful of the sites that we use to purchase items by verifying their legitimacy. If a deal is too good to be true, even on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it may very well be. Check your sources and do the research, it will "pay-off" in the long run.

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