As the likes of Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and Ajio begin their festive season sale, online shoppers are closely monitoring the web for upcoming surprises – for one-time offers or once-a-year deals. However, this time also makes it simple for cybercriminals to prey on unsuspecting individuals by promising them free items or steep discounts.

Ruchir Verma, cyber expert, CYBLE said that the Cyber Safety and Cyber Security Awareness Cell of the Ministry of Home Affairs constantly advises people to be cautious while shopping online and not to click on suspicious links. However, every year people become victims of frauds or cyber thugs on a large scale.

Cybersecurity firm CheckPoint said in one of its research that it has already witnessed a 37 percent increase in daily Amazon-related phishing attacks in the first few days in July compared to the daily average in June.

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The research also pointed out that during June 2022, there were almost 1,900 new domains related to the term “amazon” of which almost 10 percent were found to be risky – either malicious or suspicious.

Rise in cyber attacks on government websites

The months of August and January – when India celebrates its Independence Day and Republic Day – which also triggers these shopping festivals, has also witnessed a sharp rise in cases of cyber attacks. According to government data, there have been record cyber attacks in August last year. If cyber experts are to be believed, most of these cases are carried out by anti-national forces.

According to CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team), a government agency that monitors cyber attacks, a record 2.5 lakh cyber crime cases were reported in August 2021. Since January 2022, there have already been over one lakh cyber attacks every month.

Amit Dubey, cyber expert, says that there has been an increase in cyber attack incidents in the last four years. There are 19 countries from which these cyber attacks originate the most which include China, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Algeria, Brazil, Vietnam and the USA.

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(Edited by : Akanksha Upadhyay)