Black Friday is quickly approaching and the shopping fever is growing exponentially. Police and cyber security experts warn enthusiastic shoppers to pay special attention when doing their crazy shopping. The newest report made by a cyber security company Kaspersky Lab shows that the season from Black Friday to Christmas is the time with the highest risk of cyber attacks. Specifically nine percent point higher than during the rest of the year.

1. Check out the website before shopping there

People can get overenthusiastic when they see an amazing deal but try to investigate before you do the final click. You would be surprised that even the most famous and biggest retailers may not be so strict when it comes to cyber protection. Simply start with putting the website name in any searching website. What do other people say about their shopping experience? Any untrustworthy story? Investigate more! Does the website ask for a super complicated password? Big thumb up for the retailer, they really do care about your safety!

2. Shop only on the retailer’s official page

This seems so obvious, that you would not even think about it, right? Just to make sure, always check the URL of the website you are currently shopping at. There are hundreds of phishing emails delivered that look so trustworthy what you wouldn’t guess that the link inserted is not official. As well as many websites that look like literal copy of the official website. Though it is not.

3. Don’t use the same password on different shopping websites

During the Black Friday last year, one of the biggest retailers in the United Kingdom has been dealing with a big problem. A 28 years old man was trying to attack their online store and steal passwords and private information of its users. Hackers deal with a simple assumption, that often turns up as correct. People use the same user name and password for almost every shopping website. Basically you use the same key for your house, office and car. So if you lose this one key, you may be facing a huge problem.

4. Change your password regularly

We can not point out the importance of password management enough. Do you already have a strong and long enough password but you haven’t changed it in a year? Ok, now change it. SaferPass makes that task a lot less burdensome.

5. When you shop from your mobile phone, use your data, not public wi-fi

According to the same study from Kaspersky Lab, the amount of people shopping from their mobile devices is growing every day and it’s not going to stop anytime soon. By using a public wi-fi, you are basically exposing your private information to the potential hacker, thus she can just click and grab it all. Check out more about the danger of public wi-fi here.

And don’t forget, don’t reveal to the retailer more information than is actually necessary!

Used sources: Kaspersky lab

Image credits: Ian Muttoo, Alan Cleaver