COLORADO SPRINGS — Today is Cyber Monday. Estimates by Adobe Analytics show retailers could bring in 12 billion dollars today.
Experts say the best deals you can grab today are electronics and furniture. However, one of the biggest shopping days of the year is also one of the biggest days for scams too.
While holiday shoppers are always on the lookout for the latest deals, it's important to make safety a priority while online shopping.
I spoke with the National Cybersecurity Center about what you can do to protect yourself while shopping online. I'm told the biggest thing to look out for are phishing emails or phishing attacks. These have grown rapidly over the past year. According to the F-B-I’sinternet crime report, phishing schemes were the number one crime type with more than 300,000 complaints last year. Check for misspellings in any texts or emails you might receive with Cyber Monday deals. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
"Be a skeptic, especially at this time of the year. You should always be a skeptic but when there's unexpected deals, things that seem too good to be true, pulling at your heartstrings, take a moment, pause, and check out those emails or weird texts that come through,” said Micki Cockrille, director of communications at the National Cybersecurity Center.
There are other things you can do to protect yourself. Use a credit card when shopping. Only shop on secure sites, use strong passwords, do not click on email links, update your software, and never use public Wi-Fi.
Never use your social media accounts to make a purchase.
Also, if you can create a different email account for only shopping, this will create an extra layer of security to protect you.
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