Frequency of phishing attacks soars before Black Friday

The number of attacks on online stores has experienced nearly a twofold increase during the week of fall sales.

Not only does the hype around Black Friday sales attract an enormous number of customers - it also attracts hackers.

In the lead-up to big sales and the holiday shopping seasons, online criminals start actively targeting customers who prefer to shop online. 

According to experts at Kaspersky Labs, the number of false websites mentioning ‘Black Friday’ created in the week of November 18-24 doubled compared to the previous week. 

What’s more, hackers have started increasingly targeting online stores to intercept customer data. This is especially true for Russian online stores: more than 10% of all phishing attacks in the country were targeted towards online stores.

Experts at Kaspersky Labs have advised users to stay vigilant not only on Black Friday but also during the holiday sales season - another period of high activity for hackers.