It’s the most wonderful time of the year – unless you’re one of the 36 million who have been targeted by scams and hackers this year alone. With the number of scams increasing every year and our reliance on digital technology growing, especially at this time of year, we’ve got the tips to help you avoid scams and hackers this Christmas.
Avoid clicking on adverts
If you’ve seen an advert for a product or service that sounds too good to be true – chances are it is. Hackers and scammers often use fake adverts to draw you in, particularly on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Instead of clicking on the link, use a search engine to search for the product or service and look at customer reviews from trusted review sites.
Look out for phishing emails
Phishing emails are rife this time of year and are often from scammers posing as charities asking for donations. If you receive an email that you weren’t expecting, don’t click on the links unless you’re sure.
You can do a few things to check if the email is legitimate. Firstly, click on the ‘from’ line in the email to see the full email address. Often the true email address is just a string of words or numbers. You can then check the subject line and body of the email for grammatical and spelling errors, as often these are obvious mistakes.
If it’s from a retailer, you receive emails regularly. Look at previous emails you’ve received from them and see if they use similar fonts, language, hyperlinks, and images, etc.
Ignore texts from mail delivery companies
With over 4.2 billion parcels sent over the festive period, the chances of receiving a ‘sorry you were out’ card through the letterbox are high. However, if it has a number for you to call to pay a fee over the phone or you receive a text from mail delivery companies like Royal Mail or DPD asking for payment for an unpaid delivery charge, alarm bells should start ringing.
There are several text scams in particular that have resulted in around 3% of people losing money because of these scams.
Install protection
Whilst vigilance is required to avoid being scammed or hacked, sometimes additional protection like using a VPN and downloading anti-virus software can provide you with that additional peace of mind and a much-needed level of protection.
A VPN works by hiding your IP address and can deter hackers from getting hold of your personal data, whilst anti-virus software can inhibit harmful malware being installed on your devices.
