With Christmas fast approaching, online scams are on the rise, as criminals seize the opportunity to trick people into giving presents.
Last year, the cybercrime unit received around 17,000 complaints in the US, with a total value of $53 million, or approximately 17.3 billion forints. While these are already staggering figures, the epidemic situation and the shortage of goods mean that there is every chance that more people will fall victim to online scams.
FBI alert issued by criminals who use a variety of methods to prey on their victims as the festive season approaches. The CID advises people to be particularly careful when buying hard-to-find products and to be suspicious of products advertised online at a price well below the original price.
Experts say to only buy online from official sites, to be extremely careful when dealing with sites that ask for personal information from users, and to always make sure you are on a secure website. One of the easiest ways to do this is to check the URL of the site: if the website name is preceded by https is included with a padlock, you can be almost certain that the communication between the user and the website is encrypted, so a hacker cannot track the user's activity.
