It’s that most wonderful time of the year, when hearts and wallets open wide… and when scammers, cybercrooks and other bad actors work overtime to earn coal for their stockings.

Why worry?

• According to a recent Statista report, 80% of Canadian consumers shopped almost equally online and instore throughout the year – and that includes teens. Yes, teens. 19% of Canadian teens (13 – 17) have their own cards on their parents’ accounts, so they can easily shop online. And do. And they tend to be more trusting / less vigilant when in malls. And if they use their parents’ computers, and these parents work for you…

• Fa-la-la form jacking. Form jacking? That’s when cyber thieves hijack payment forms on popular shopping websites, to steal personal and credit card data. You make a purchase from a reputable vendor, only to have your data snatched and sold on the dark web. This data then gets used for phishing so these online criminals can gain entry to whatever associated networks they can. When it’s your employees and other stakeholders, it will be your network.

• The Retail Council of Canada is forecasting strong bricks and mortar retail sales from now until after New Year’s. Today, mall shoppers must not only protect their purses, bags and pockets from sticky fingers, card cloning devices and RFID data scanners, but their phones from similar tools and preying prying eyes. Again, not only do bank accounts get breached, but related networks, too.

• You also need to guard against fingerprint hackers. They can lift fingerprints from photos taken up to 10 feet away and use these phantom fingerprints to gain access to your phone, laptop and whatever you’re using. They would then have to get hold of your device, of course, but it’s scary to think that it is being done

What should you do? And what advice do you give employees and family members?

• Depending on whose research you read, anywhere from 53 – 69% of people leave their phones unlocked, making it easier for them to be hacked. So, insist that your staff and your kids lock their phones – though your employees are more likely to need reminding than your children.

• You have no way of knowing if your card or bank accounts have been compromised until the bills come in, so remind people that it’s critical to check accounts online regularly at this time of year. Better yet, to use a prepaid credit card when shopping online.

• Encourage people to separate work and personal devices. Although municipalities, education and healthcare organisations were the big targets for ransomware deployment in 2021 and early 2022, manufacturers and logistics companies now have the biggest bullseye on their backs. Considering the number of people using their own phones to connect to work, ensure your network security is working optimally, and install endpoint security on all mobile devices. Yes – offer it for personal devices, too.

We have a solution/program that will let you know if any of your company’s URLS and credentials, and/or employees’ email accounts and access information (work and personal) have appeared for sale on the dark web, if you want to know what’s been going on.

• Suggest – strongly – that people only download shopping apps from trusted sources such as the Amazon App Store, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, etc. Remember, they’ll be connecting to your network again once they’ve finished shopping. You might also want to suggest they…

• Ho-Ho-Hold on before clicking on that sales link. We all know that if a deal seems too good to be true, that’s usually the case. For some reason, people are less cautious around the holidays. Remind everyone in your personal and professional network to be on the lookout for phishing scams and ransomware. They’ll arrive, much like Santa in the night, in email notices containing appeals from fake charities (and some of the children’s ones can make you cry ), fake shipping notifications, fake order confirmations and a myriad of other things to tempt you.

KnowBe4, whose offering integrates well with most solutions, has an application to identify scam email before it’s opened. That might give you some added peace of mind.

What about your premises?

Now might be the perfect time to upgrade your cameras – and to tie them into your remote security monitoring systems and services.  We have excellent ones from Cisco and Verkada – some at very reasonable rates.

Last thought:  Even though you may still be avoiding holiday crowds and pickpockets this year, cyber criminals are stalking you. So, please…

Contact us at  (416) 429-0796 or 1.877.238.9944 (Toll Free) to learn more about adding KnowBe4, Cisco Endpoint Protection (both great tools in the fight against felons), and cameras such as the Cisco and Verkada ones, to your security arsenal. Don’t worry; if you’re not a Cisco user, we can still get you covered, as we work with all manufacturers.