TAMPA, Fla — Amazon Prime Day is almost here!
With so many people gearing up to place some orders online, it's important to watch out for possible scammers trying to copy the online retail giant.
A website called Check Point says newly registered domains containing the words “Amazon” and “Prime” doubled within the last 30 days and 20 percent of those were found to be malicious. There was also a 21 percent increase in domains registered with the word “Amazon,” with more than 38-percent being either malicious or suspicious.
Check Point shared these seven safety and security tips for shoppers:
- Watch for misspellings of Amazon.com. Beware of misspellings or sites using a different top-level domain other than Amazon.com. For example, a .co instead of .com.
- Look for the lock. Avoid buying something online using your payment details from a website that does not have a secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption installed. An easy way to tell is that an icon of a locked padlock appears, typically to the left of the URL in the address bar or the status bar down below. No lock is a major red flag.
- Share the bare minimum. No online shopping retailer needs your birthday or social security number to do business. The more hackers know the more they can hijack your identity. Always maintain the discipline of sharing the bare minimum when it comes to your personal information.
- Before Prime Day, create a strong password for Amazon.com. Once a hacker is inside your account, it is game over. Make sure your password for Amazon.com is uncrackable, well before October 14.
- Don’t go public. If you find yourself at an airport, a hotel or your local coffee shop, please refrain from using their public wi-fi to shop on Amazon Prime Day. Hackers can intercept what you are looking at on the web. This can include emails, payment details, browsing history or passwords.
- Beware of “too good to be true” bargains. This will be tough to do, as Prime Day is filled with great offers. But, if it seems WAY too good to be true, it probably is.
- Stick to credit cards. During Prime Day, it’s best to stick to your credit card. Because debit cards are linked to our bank accounts, we’re at a much higher risk if someone is able to hack our information. If a card number gets stolen, credit cards offer more protection and less liability.
Amazon Prime Day starts Oct. 13 and will have sales up for 48 hours.
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