“Bad actors know that people are expecting unreasonably low prices on products, making the idea that if it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t, far from their minds,” Erich Kron, security awareness advocate with KnowBe4, told Lifewire over email. “[Scammers] will use this expectation and the excitement of great deals to try to lure people into falling for fake deals on fake websites, where they steal everything from your password to your credit card information.”

Prime for Scams

This is why Tim Helming, security evangelist with threat intelligence specialists DomainTools, advises people to always cast a skeptical eye on online ads or emails touting extreme deals. “These may, in fact, be genuine, but it’s worth taking a bit of time to be sure,” Helming told Lifewire via email.

[Scammers] will use this expectation and the excitement of great deals to try to lure people into falling for fake deals on fake websites…

Click With Caution

A report from Juniper Research estimated that if current trends persist, the total losses to online payment fraud for merchants worldwide between 2023 and 2027 will top $343 billion.

One piece of advice all our experts offer is to always make online payments using credit cards instead of debit cards. They reason credit cards provide far greater protections and allow you to dispute unapproved charges and possibly even get your money back. 

DeCarlis says all kinds of cyberattacks these days are integrated and cyclical. She explains cyber criminals take advantage of the fact that people reuse passwords and often strive to validate user names and credentials on one site and then test them on another.

This is why she says the web attack cycle these days begins with a data breach on one site and ends up fueling credential stuffing attacks on numerous other sites, which in turn, leads to account takeovers and fraud.  

“To help put a stop to this, consumers should be sure to change passwords frequently,” advised DeCarlis. “[And] when your transaction is complete, be sure to fully log out.”

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