Be Careful Where You Surf

Cyber attackers have an abundance of tools readily available at their fingertips to create fake and malicious websites. These websites are created for exploiting and compromising the unsuspecting ‘surfer’, by stealing their personal and sensitive data as well as payment card information.

What Should You Know ?

These fake and malicious websites are designed to look like legitimate online business websites and they may be offering to sell business-related goods at a cheaper price than the legitimate online sites or they may have been created to lure unsuspected persons in believing that they are paying their online utility bills.

The cyber attacker may use the fake or malicious website in combination with other well-known compromise techniques, such as sending a phishing email to employees of the targeted organization or sending utility bill payment reminders. Typically, the text of the email, will be worded with a sense of urgency, for example, it may say that the business has outstanding invoice payment past due, click the link to pay your bill online to avoid service interruption. The link contained within the email, once clicked with take the person to the fake website, which has been created to look identical to the legitimate website.

What Should You Do ?

You should only use trusted and secure websites for your online transactions. One of the signs that a website is insecure is that it will start with http://, whereas secure website will be https:// The https means that your data will be secured with encryption when data is transferred over the internet.

Secure websites, normally have a small padlock next to the web address, or the address may be highlighted in green. If these signs are not presence, it may be a sign that the website is not legitimate.

You should carefully check the domain name of the website. A common tactic of scammers is to create websites with addresses that are very similar in name or similar sounding to legitimate brands, companies or well-known online sites. You should hover your cursor over the address and domain name, to check that the website address makes sense for your online shopping or online transaction.

You should watch out for poor spelling, punctuation and grammar as this could indicate that a website is not legitimate.

You should not use websites that are insecure or require you to make unsecured methods of payment.

You should always do you research before making online purchases.

You should never click on links to access websites from within emails that arouse your suspicion or are from an unknown person or that are unexpected.

Report to RCIPS, call 911