Prime Day is Amazon’s largest event of the year.
But as we prepare for two days of discounts and deals extravaganza, phishers and scammers are prepping to prey on the unwary, taking advantage of those who let their guard down to snap up bargains.
The guys from Bolster recently tracked a marked increased in phishing and fraud campaigns using the Amazon brand and logos.
“Shoppers need to stay alert and be careful on Prime Day to ensure they do not fall for a fraudulent campaign”, they reported in a blog post.
Prime Day Scams, some examples:
To get to the hart of the problem, Bolster Research analyzed hundreds of millions of web pages and tracked the number of new phishing and fraudulent sites using the Amazon brand and logos.
“After the spike in March coinciding with the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 pandemic announcement, there was a slight dip then a gradual increase with a sharp spike in August with another 2.5X increase in September. The obvious spike is a strong indication that cyber criminals are gearing up for a profitable Prime Day to take advantage of the unwary”.
As you can see in the chart below the new monthly phishing and fraudulent sites created using the Amazon brand is definitely skyrocketing.
And here are some examples provided by Bolster themselves:
Look out! it’s too good to be true
We shouldn’t tell you here, but if something looks too good to be true, it probably is; especially on the internet.
In their blog Bolster gave a few evergreen tips on how to avoid these scams nonetheless:
- Start on Amazon.com, well – we shouldn’t have to tell you 🙂
- Ensure purchase experience is unchanged, because cyber criminals mimic this experience, but ultimately alter certain steps…
- Inspect site usability and details; leave if incorrect, though they appear close to the real site, phishing sites miss certain details.