This year, Black Friday will be mostly happening from the comfort of our homes, due to Covid-19 along with another online shopping day, Cyber Monday. In 2019, Black Friday and Cyber Monday’s combined online sales totaled $17 billion. Experts predict that 2020 will most likely will be a record-breaking year in terms of Ecommerce purchases.
But with the increase in sales comes an increase in cyberattacks. Malware attacks were up 69% on Black Friday 2019 over 2018, and there were 51% more phishing attacks on Black Friday 2019 than any other day that year. Business in the Community reported that 43% of retail businesses have the fewest cybersecurity measures in place, and with the busiest season approaching, that needs to be fixed.
“The shopping frenzy often means that security and personal information is treated as an after-thought, as opposed to something that is baked into our online shopping behaviors,” said Haroon Malik, Director of Cyber Security Consulting at Fujitsu UK.
Holiday Data Breaches Can Happen to Anyone
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are an ideal time for bad actors to come out of the woodwork because these are such high-volume shopping days, as well as being a bit chaotic. Retailers tend to have their guard down, as do consumers. And it doesn’t matter how big or small you are, you can suffer a data breach. Target suffered a breach during Black Friday weekend in 2013, and 70 million customer’s accounts were a part of that breach. Amazon was a victim of a breach in 2018, days before Black Friday.
Protecting Your Business from Online Fraud
It is crucial to be proactive this holiday season to avoid a data breach. There are many steps companies can take to keep your customers protected, as well as the business safe from fraudsters.
“Holiday breaches can cause downtime or reputation damage that can put a huge dent in seasonal sales and a business’s bottom line as a result. While both big and small brands are at risk of attacks that impact holiday sales, a breach can potentially sink a small online retailer as these businesses typically have smaller budgets and fewer resources to protect themselves,” SiteLock channel and product specialist Monique Becenti, said.
To prevent online fraud from damaging your bottom line, use a friction-free fraud detection system that can reduce manual fraud reviews and detect suspicious transactions in a matter of milliseconds. As your business gears up for the season, it’s important to immediately review your credit card verification processes and fix any issues in advance of the busy holiday rush.
- Use reCAPTCHA to deter bots from testing credit cards
- Use AVS to ensure cardholder billing addresses match orders
- Require CVV codes on all credit and debit card purchases
- Flag multiple order attempts from the same IP address
- Ensure order addresses and IP addresses are from the same country
There are also additional measures that you and your employees can take to help spot online fraud and to help your customers stay safe.
- Review your email database for hacked addresses
- Monitor the web and be on the lookout for fake websites or assets that are designed as their brand.
- Send emails to customers educating them how to detect phishing and social engineering scams. Remind them of your security and privacy procedures.
- Encourage customers to always navigate directly to your website, avoid links.
- The customer tries different expiration dates after initial decline
- The customer purchases large amount of the same item
Learn more about how to spot payment fraud.
Beating the Holiday Rush
Regardless of what the holidays bring, Bluefin will be with you every step of the way — offering seamless PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) technology for securing point-of-sale (POS) transactions and ShieldConex® for securing Ecommerce payments. To keep your company safe and secure, contact Bluefin today and learn more about our security solutions.
