As expected, cybersecurity researchers have reported a massive increase in malware attacks over the Black Friday weekend, with the number of websites attacked 50 times a day registering a jump of over 300%.
Crunching the numbers collected by Capture Labs, analysts at VPN provider Surfshark noticed that the attacks on websites grew from 15 million at the start of November to 60 million on Black Friday.
“The number of websites attacked 50 times a day by hackers grew by 10% in the first two weeks of November compared to October. Sharp jumps started with a 30% increase in cyber-attacks on Singles day, and peaked with a 300% spike in malware attacks on Black Friday,” the company noted.
Interestingly, the number returned to their pre-Black Friday levels on Cyber Monday.
Brace for impact
Citing United States Census Bureau data, Surfshark says that people in the US spent around $6.5 billion more on Black Friday than any other day of 2021. In the overall scheme of things, even though shoppers spent around $100 million less this year than in 2020, cyber threats showed an opposite tendency.
Vytautas Kaziukonis, CEO of Surfshark says that scammers hope to capitalize on the shopping frenzy to run all sorts of malicious ecommerce campaigns in order to facilitate credit card theft.
He adds that going by the trend that scammers become active during annual shopping sprees, users should remain cautious during the upcoming Christmas holidays.
Interestingly, the analysts note that intrusion attacks actually registered a decrease of 15% on Black Friday, suggesting that the attackers shift from attempting direct break-ins to the use of malware depending on the event and peoples' behavior.
Meanwhile, if you are concerned about online security, use these best password managers to securely lock your accounts, and perhaps even use one of these best security keys to add another layer of protection
