The festive season is a busy time of year for scammers of all kinds as people plan to buy more products and services and the market for gifts reaches its peak.

Add in Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the pre- Christmas sales and the Boxing Day sales and you have an explosion of buying that the scammers want a share of.

Fake Shops

Scammers set up fake website shops offering whatever products are most popular. They usually copy the sales text and pictures from genuine websites to make their site look real, but if you buy then you’re unlikely to get anything and you will lose the money. Often they sell your credit card details to other scammers.

Always make sure you‘re on a genuine company website before buying anything.

Phishing Scam

There are any number of ways scammers will use to try to get your confidential information, including fake shops as above, fake text messages claiming to be from your bank, fake warnings where you have to click a link to login., but the link takes you to a specially prepared webpage that imitates your bank or whoever the scammers claim to be. The page is just to get your details.

The link may say it’s what you expect (e.g. Marks and Spencer/discounts) but it will be a fake page shop designed to get your confidential information.

Beware of these scams and don’t click a link unless you are sure it is safe.

Charity Scams.

Many people give more to charity at Christmas and the scammers go into overdrive with fake charity sites, fake charity emails and social media posts. They tug at your heartstrings in an attempt to get money.

They may claim celebrity endorsement or official recognition or anything to make themselves believable.

Scammers may pose as representatives of charitable organizations that are real (or merely sound real). At this time of year, their emotionally-charged appeals are more likely to strike “pay dirt” with normally careful people.

The scams may involve nationally recognized charities aiding well-known causes, or local groups handling problems closer to home.

If you want to donate to charity then donate in person or go to the correct website directly – do not click on links in messages.

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Christmas is a time when some people make wish lists online and these can be fun but they can inadvertently give away a lot of information to scammers.

Amazon maintains wish lists so in theory other people can buy gifts for you that you do want rather than having to figure out what you might want. Amazon has three levels of privacy – Public, Shared or Private.  Choosing Public lets anyone see the list, Private means just you and shared is where you can choose who gets to see the list.

Allowing this information to be public should be harmless, but people who are trying to steal your identity can use this information to get critical details about you.

Michelle Black works with Hope 4 USA in Ft. Mill. She spends several hours a day helping people recover from ID theft, which is one of the fastest growing crimes.

Black says “A scammer can log into these public websites, public wish lists. From there they might have such information as your city and state, your date of birth, your children’s names and perhaps their dates of birth and they can use that to start putting together the pieces of the puzzle they need to fully steal your identity.”

The thieves then create a fake website by making it look like Amazon or the online wish list company.

They  tell you someone has purchased an item on your list and all you have to do is login to confirm the mailing address.

And if you click on that link and login, the scammer has the information needed to access your account and maybe even for identity theft.

Make sure any online wish list or gift registry is set to Private.

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We are all used to having to be careful opening certain emails, zipped files,  WORD, EXCEL and other types of files in case they contain some kind of malware – virus, ransomware, Trojan etc.

But most people feel safe opening PDF documents.

However, scammers are using PDFs more and more as attachments in email or malicious downloads on websites.

PDFs can contain javascript programming which can have malicious intent and they can contain links which of course could go to any website.

Microsoft Malware Protection Centre released a list of PDF filenames that are commonly used in malicious emails and websites. Scammers keep making new names of course.

• pdf_new.pdf
• audjehtg1.pdf
• a10pokllt.pdf
• pricelist.pdf
• couple_lucky.pdf
• 56119081.pdf
• list.pdf
• holidays.pdf

Q. How can you protect yourself against malicious content?

Most of the PDF exploits use Javascript so if you disable that then a large part of the problem is blocked.

However, common sense goes a long way in protecting you.

1. Do not open an email or download anything that is sent to you by someone you don’t know
2. Make sure your email settings are on high protection and your anti-virus and anti-malware programmes are working
3. If there’s a file on email you really want to open but aren’t sure then save it and then scan it (usually you right mouse click and select scan – depending on which anti-malware solutions you use)

Of course, you should run regular scans of your computer to ensure no malware has been installed.

How to Turn Off Javascript in PDFs

If you use a programme other than ADOBE for opening PDFs then you’ll need to check how to disable Javascript. If you use ADOBE then see below:-

1. Start Acrobat or ADOBE
2. Select EDIT then PREFERENCES
3. Select the Javascript category
4. Uncheck the Enable Acrobat Javascript option
5. Save and exit

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