As holiday shoppers continue to scour the Internet for the best deals this season, scammers and hackers are using artificial intelligence to dupe them for their own gain.
Cybersecurity experts warn the public to stay vigilant this holiday season as crooks turn to technology to trick shoppers into buying fake products or providing their financial information. Because online shopping is so popular, there isn’t a particular demographic being targeted, so everyone is at risk, experts say.
“They’re targeting anybody and everybody,” Cliff Steinhauer of the National Cybersecurity Alliance said. “They don’t discriminate, and it’s literally targeted towards anyone who shops online. They know that we’re looking for deals, they know we’re going to rush.”
According to Steinhauer, these tech-savvy criminals use AI to turn old tricks into stronger and better scams.
“They’ll clone a popular shopping website or a popular brand and stand up all the same products, but usually at a really steep discount, or it could be a completely fake product,” he said. “But they will basically take the payment information and kind of run off with the money.”
With the existence of technology, scammers are able to set up multiple predatory digital traps. That means when one of their phony sites gets flagged for removal, they’re still able to dupe other people since their other sites exist.
Steinhauer said these crooks use consumers’ own online algorithms against them by presenting things they’ve shown interest in via their search histories. They use this information to target different shoppers.
“Scammers buy ads, too,” he said. “They will actually place ads on social media and in paid search results, so your Google search results when you search for a product. Those ads can also take you to malicious websites.”
Thankfully, there is some advice consumers can follow to avoid falling trap to one of these scams. Steinhauer offered the following advice to protect yourself from criminals:
- Avoid clicking social media advertisements
- Purchase products directly from a retailer’s website, especially if it’s a reputable site
- Use strong, unique passwords for each of your online accounts
- Turn on two-step verification or multi-factor authentication
- Keep your software updated so malware cannot install itself if you’re taken to a malicious website.
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