Owing to the concerns and restrictions related to COVID-19, this year has broken all records when it comes to online shopping. The US consumers spent $21.7 billion online during the traditional holiday shopping season. It lasted all through the first 10 days of November, indicating a 21% increase year-over-year.

Alibaba revealed that a record of $74 billion in sales was set on Chinese Singles Day on 11th November, which is nearly double the previous year’s record. This sales momentum is expected to keep rising in the run-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday at the end of November.

However, this surge in online shopping has attracted the attention of cybercriminals, who are going all out to get their hands on some of this holiday spending. A report has revealed that November 2020 witnessed a dramatic spike in hacker activity. There has been a huge rise in phishing campaigns targeting online shoppers in the form of “special offers.”

What Do the Statistics Show?

Cybercriminals are taking full advantage of the holiday season to fill their pockets. Shoppers and stores alike are being scammed by the numerous phishing campaigns designed to take unaware victims off-guard. Here are some statistics indicating the severity of the situation:

1. One of every 826 emails in November 2020 is a shopping-related phishing email. This is significantly more than one in 1100 emails reported at the beginning of October.  
2. The number of “special offers” related to phishing campaigns per week has risen to 243 at the start of November from 121 at the beginning of October.
3. The first half of November witnessed an 80% increase in phishing campaigns related to sales and special offers.
4. The number of weekly “special offer” related phishing campaigns in just two days (9th and 10th November) was higher than during the entire first week of October.
5. The number of weekly “special offers” related phishing campaigns have doubled globally over the four weeks from 8th October to 9th November.

How to Stop Phishing Emails from Wreaking Havoc?

With a large number of phishing emails flooding your inboxes day after day, it can be tricky to differentiate between authentic emails and fraudulent ones. It has become absolutely essential to take certain measures to protect your organization against the onslaught of phishing campaigns. 

Here are some basic cybersecurity tips to keep in mind: 

1. Generate awareness amongst your employees about the common cyber attack tactics and essential cybersecurity measures they can take to prevent it.
2. Ask your employees to double-check the sender’s email address and be aware of any language issues or unusual date formats.
3. Avoid opening any emails or clicking on any attachments or links from suspicious or unknown parties.
4. Implement a Phishing Incident Response Tool like TPIR and instruct employees to report any suspicious-looking email.
5. Use standard email authentication protocols like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF to secure your email domain against domain forgery.
6. Implement TDMARC to monitor all three of these email authentication protocols to complement the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

TDMARC for the Ultimate Email Domain Security

KDMARC is a Global Cyber Alliance-certified outbound email authentication monitoring and anti-spoofing tool. It is designed to protect your organization against email-based attacks like spoofing, spamming BEC, etc. 

The tool protects your customers and prevents email domains against brand abuse. Along with this, KDMARC helps in increasing email deliverability and boosting email engagement rates. It provides you with full insight into your organization’s email channel. And provides domain owners with full reports about the email messages that they send across the internet.

It offers a domain summary of 3 months to provide complete visibility into legitimate and fraudulent emails sent using your organization’s domain name. This tool gives you insight into the sources that are trying to forge your organization’s domain name.

Conclusion

Phishing campaigns are on the rise and pose a considerable threat to individuals and organizations alike. For this reason, it is extremely important to take the necessary precautions and instruct your employees to do the same. Even keeping essential cybersecurity tips in mind can make a difference. So, keep your eyes peeled and be on your guard this holiday season.

Click the button below to secure your email domain against spoofing for FREE with TDMARC!

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