You know it’s a big deal when it won’t be an overstatement to call what America is going through as their biggest cybersecurity crisis ever. The country has been ravaged by cyberattacks of varying nature such as ransomware and malware attacks. They are being hit right where it hurts the most by the threat actors, as country’s core infrastructure and its economic pillars are being targeted left right and centre. Biden administration has laid out a blueprint to tackle this crisis, but there hasn’t been any success so far, and that’s largely because of evolved methods that the hackers are putting into practice. They are exploiting loopholes that are out of government’s knowledge, and with the administration unable to come up with a solution, America currently stands unprotected and vulnerable. Amidst this turmoil, security experts have once again blown the warning alarm. This comes up in the light of Amazon’s Prime Day bonanza. Amazon being the biggest e-commerce platform in the world boasts a huge customer base, and even if we remove the non-prime users, there is still a sizeable pool of people who’ll be eligible to take part in the upcoming Prime day fest. Needless to say, the hackers are well aware of this and they are licking their lips over the potential damage they can inflict across the duration of it. Security experts have warned the online shoppers to be wary of phishing emails and texts. Last year, a humongous 133% increase in phishing cases was reported during a similar offer period on Amazon store.
“The most common tactic will be for scammers to impersonate Amazon in phishing emails, luring consumers with ‘too good to be true’ deals or prize offerings to encourage them into clicking malicious links or entering their details into fake websites,” Threat Intelligence Researcher at Tessian, Charles Brook said.
Another method for exploitation that is being widely predicted looks to be hackers impersonating as logistics or delivery partners and baiting consumers into confirming their order through a link, tracking their package or rerouting the shipment. The standard format used by the hackers and limitation of information at the consumer’s disposal makes it hard to differentiate genuine communication from a mere phishing attempt. Hence, the shoppers are advised to not click on unsolicited messages containing links, and verify with Amazon support even if the notification was expected.