Billions of Gmail and Outlook users warned to search inbox for bank-drain ‘vacation’ message – three red flags to spot
CYBERSECURITY experts have warned that vacation scams are on the rise and you may have one lurking in your inbox.
Cybercriminals aim to steal your personal details and your money, ruining potential plans for a real vacation.
A study by Check Point Research revealed a shocking rise in the malicious scams.
“In May 2023, the period running up to summertime, 29,880 new domains related to holidays or breaks were created.
“This represents a 23% year-over-year increase compared with the same period last year, when 24,367 new domains were created.
“Of those websites that went live, 1 in every 83 were either malicious or suspicious,” according to the Check Point Research Blog.
The researchers also highlighted fake approved vacation requests that you might spot at work.
This scam encourages recipients to click on a link that might download malware onto their devices.
Security experts at KnowBe4 have released three pieces of advice to help avoid these vacation scams.
The first is avoiding emails that promise too good to be true trips.
If you’re being offered an all-expenses paid trip at a very low price then it’s likely a scam.
Next on the list is watching out for misspellings and extra letters in domain names.
Cybercriminals will try to spoof legitimate email addresses and hope you don’t notice that you’re on a bogus site.
Last on the list is looking out for URLs that don’t contain the phrase “HTTPS.”
If it doesn’t contain this, it’s likely not a legitimate site and you could lose your money.