Cybercriminals target holiday shopping during the holidays

The holidays have become a perfect time for cybercriminals to try and swindle victims out of their money through scams, fake promotions, and even fake or unsecured websites.

Over the past several years, there has been a rise in fraud and phishing attempts around the holiday season, according to Dimitri Shelest, CEO of software company OneRep.

The shoppers need to make sure that links take them to anticipated websites and to exercise discretion when engaging with online content, according to Shelest.

Credit card skimming is a huge threat to online shoppers. Shelest urges customers not to save credit card information on retail websites.

The FBI says that criminals can use the data taken from a user's card to create fake credit or debit cards and steal money from their accounts.

As online shopping becomes increasingly popular, cybercriminals are targeting digital checkouts to steal personal and financial data, he said, adding that it's important to enable purchase alerts on payment cards.

Stephanie Benoit-Kurtz, the lead cybersecurity faculty at the College of Business and Information Technology at the University of Phoenix, said that the information on a website is safe and that it is Payment Card Industry PCI compliant.

PCI compliance, which is directed by credit card companies to protect consumers, mandates that a variety of standards be upheld to ensure secure credit card transactions, according to Benoit-Kurtz. She said that if a website is not PCI-compliant, personally identifiable information could be at risk, either through a third-party seller or through the consumer's computer or device because the end-point security necessary to shield the transaction is absent or inadequate.

Personal information is at risk as a result of a warning on a website showing that a PCI certificate is not secure or even expired, according to Benoit-Kurtz.

When consumers buy a product or service, companies should make sure that data is encrypted. The lock symbol in the browser will help shoppers determine if the organization is using encryption.

She said that the website uses SSL, a data-transfer security standard that encrypts your data and ensures that the server in use is authentic and secure.

She added that companies can not store, manage, maintain or transmit credit card numbers because of the use of tokenization.

The information should be published on the organization's website. A company's website should notify customers what they are doing to protect their information from being hacked.

For an added layer of protection, consumers can also install a firewall software application. According to Benoit-Kurtz, software can protect your data in both directions, although they are usually used to prevent outside malicious cyberattacks.