Labor Day is here, that means sales, vacations and a higher risk of being targeted by hackers online.
It’s a sad reality. Experts say you’re more likely to be hacked on popular shopping holidays like Labor Day weekend. The three day holiday leaves a lot of room for scammers to come in and nab some of your personal information during all the excitement.
We met up with Jonathan Hard, the CEO and President of H2L Solutions, a cybersecurity company right here in Huntsville. He gave us some tips on how to fight off these attacks.
Hard says consumers need to arm themselves with the latest protection. “Make sure that all of your devices are updates. Anything that’s connected to the internet, whether it’s your mobile phone, your wi-fi router at home, your computer– make sure that you have the latest operating system updates and make sure you have the latest security patches downloaded,” Hard advises.
A reported record of 17.5 million passengers were expected to travel on U.S.-based airlines this Labor Day Weekend and vacation scams are at an all-time high. Scammers take advantage of the increase, and the Better Business Bureau says vacation scams cost U.S. consumers around $10 billion per year.
Hackers take advantage of consumers looking for cheap flights and hotel stays. Be wary of flashy pop up ads, incorrect spelling in promotions and sites that prompt you to enter personal information. Just clicking on an ad can cause malicious software have access to your computer.
“Some of those sites are built specifically to harvest your credentials, harvest your credit card number, harvest your passwords…”
This weekend is also a popular time for cyber attackers to “skim” credit cards. Be aware of skimming films. They can be put into gas pumps or even restaurant card readers to gain financial information. If something looks tampered with, don’t use it!
The most popular cyber risk this weekend? Online shopping.
“If you use your credit card, make sure your don’t save it in their system. There’s usually and option to save your credit card on the site. I never click that. You don’t want that to be saved on their website and then their website gets exploited and gets and guess what? Now your credit card credentials and your address and your name are all in the hands of an adversary.”
As this weekend comes to a close, take a look at your email, bank account statements and social media accounts for any indication of suspicious activity.