Stop Black Friday Scammers

The holiday shopping season is here. The Friday after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, where retailers roll out deep discounts. In years past, this day meant hordes of early-birds lining up to run into the store. The pandemic and the constant rise in online shopping has changed the dynamic this year. Any time money is spent, criminals and fraud are in the shadows. Hackers are set to spoil the holiday shopping season, much like a digital Grinch.

This post will cover some tips for online retailers to follow to reduce the likelihood of holiday hijinks.

Monitor Your Brand for Imitations

Customer service is the key to repeat customers. A bad experience can sour perception. If your brand is used by criminals to perpetrate fraud, the black eye is yours. Criminals are putting fake websites online with the goal of fooling visitors to make purchases. Spoofed emails could be sent to people to get visits. Social media and the many channels that people consume information through also provide traffic to these fake sites. A deep discount in a message can work wonders to get people to bite on fraud.

Solution: Your website URL can be monitored using domain protection technology that looks for domains that are registered that might be used for these fraudulent purposes. After identifying a URL that is suspicious, your company can pursue techniques to get the site offline. In addition, companies can alert their customers that scammers are out there trying to take advantage of people. A notice could remind customers about best practices for verifying authentic domains, like paying attention to the exact URL.

Stop Credit Card Theft

Credit cards are an essential element of eCommerce. There is a massive black market for credit card numbers. The source of these stolen credit cards is often websites that have been compromised. Magecart is the term for techniques used by groups to steal credentials. The group is able to exploit vulnerabilities or misconfigurations in different web technologies and steal credentials on checkout pages. If you online store is the victim of this fraud, you could face chargebacks and angry customers.

Solution: The foundation for credit card security can be built by following the guidelines for PCI DSS. Important items include ensuring you have updated your shopping cart technology. Make sure your software is properly configured and hardened. Finally, ensure that the 3rd party code running on your checkout pages are required for functioning.

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