There was a time when spam wasn’t considered dangerous; it was merely obnoxious. Unfortunately, it seems that time is quickly coming to an end. For example, take the recent article on CNN.com: “Cyber crime poses threat to e-commerce.” The article—about increasing trends in online spam and related fraud—cites a statistic from antivirus-software provider Symantec which claims that the percentage of spam that contains malicious software has increased 900% over last year.

Additionally, as perpetrators of online crime get smarter and savvier, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between legitimate email and spam. Especially during the holidays—a busy time for fraudsters, as we’ve already discussed—there are plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the upswing in online shopping for Christmas. For example, take a look at the top 10 subject lines for seasonal spam, as reported in the December issue of Symantec’s monthly report, State of Spam: (more…)

If you’re curious to know what’s topping people’s wish lists this holiday season, just take a look at online sales. No big surprise, electronics are where it’s at. Based on information provided by fraud prevention experts (and iovation partner) Retail Decisions (ReD), the top-ten list of products sold online during Black Friday was dominated by GPS systems, televisions, digital cameras and video game consoles.

Besides providing statistics on what online purchases people were spending their hard-earned money on during Black Friday, ReD also noted that online criminals were out in force, busy spending other people’s money. “Whilst online retailers witnessed a huge upturn in sales this Black Friday, fraudsters are also ’spending’ more, with an average value of $248 per transaction online, 23% more than the average genuine customer,” said ReD’s CEO, Carl Clump. (more…)

According to ComScore, a Virginia-based firm that tracks online shopping, consumers have already purchased over $19 billion worth of products online this holiday season. That’s an increase of 3% over last year. While that’s good news for online merchants, Mike Cronin points out in his article, ’Tis the season to be wary of online scams, that it also provides new opportunities for online scammers.

Much like online businesses, cyber criminals are working around the clock this time of year. But instead of sending out legitimate emails promoting online sales, fraudsters are sending out emails containing bogus links that closely resemble real retail websites. While their intent is to steal credit card information from unsuspecting online shoppers, the real victims in this crime will end up being online merchants. (more…)

Good news for online retailers came this weekend as reports showed that this year’s online sales during Black Friday were up 11% from last year, with U.S. shoppers ringing up $595 million worth of orders throughout the day. The bulk of the increases, not surprisingly, went to the largest stores. As the blog on the Wall Street Journal reports:

The retail sites for Amazon.com, Apple, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart each saw more than 4 million unique visits Friday, comScore said, with Amazon receiving the most traffic (up 28% from 2008). Apple, Best Buy and Wal-Mart sites also experienced double-digit traffic gains. According to Experian Hitwise, another Web monitoring firm, other e-commerce standouts included Sears, Staples and Dell.

These results are welcome news for retailers who have been concerned that fear of identity theft could have a noticeably negative impact on sales. Just last week SC Magazine predicted overall online spending to be down this year because of such fears. Luckily, so far, this does not appear to be the case. (more…)

On the heels of our previous post about increased shipping fraud during the holidays, eWeek has just reported that click fraud is also anticipated to increase dramatically in the coming months:

“As we head into Q4 and the busiest season for online shopping and Internet use by those considered inexperienced users, click fraud will likely run rampant as scammers seek to tap into the increased attention, experts warned.”

Click fraud (which is when affiliate sites dishonestly increase online ad traffic in order to gain unearned revenue) is one of many types of fraud becoming more common with the use of botnets. In addition to click fraud, many other types of fraud—including spam, phishing attacks, and identity theft—are gaining in prevalence with the use of botnets. The result is that consumer PCs are under siege and individuals and businesses alike bear the cost. (more…)

Holiday shopping season is upon us; combine that with the current unemployment rate, and online fraud is likely to reach an all-time high this year. This correlation may not immediately make sense, since many people think Internet crime is only perpetrated by organized fraud rings and overseas master criminals, using botnets and committing identity theft.

But while that kind of fraud certainly does exist, there is another type of fraud that can be equally troublesome and, to some extent, even harder to combat: fraud committed by individuals using their own legitimate information. A very common example of this kind of crime is shipping fraud and it takes several different forms. Here are a few examples and tips on how companies can address this problem. (more…)