Black Friday 2023. NASK warns against fake online stores

The most recently accepted applications concerned stores of brands such as Cropp, Mohito, Sinsay and Wojas – indicated CERT Polska. According to NASK, the attack scenario involves several steps in which criminals publish advertisements on the Internet and social media that are confusingly similar to those of well-known brands.

“They can also send them by e-mail or even SMS messages containing links,” NASK pointed out.

“They redirect to fake websites that imitate the storefronts of popular online sales companies, most often from the clothing industry” – this is the next step.

The forms contained on these websites, supposedly used to finalize transactions and accept payment for selected products, are in fact intended to extort the victim’s payment card or online banking details – NASK explained.

In such a situation, making a “purchase” in a fake online store may unfortunately result not only in the loss of the amount intended for the purchase, but even a much larger sum of money. “In the worst-case scenario, this may be all the savings kept in the victim’s bank account,” warns CERT Polska.

It encourages you to learn how to defend yourself against such attacks by reading the advice published on the website cert.pl/falszywe-sklepy and reading the guide “How to shop safely on the Internet” (https://cert.pl/uploads/docs/CERT_poradnik_zakupowy.pdf ).

Black Friday, literally Black Friday, is an annual American consumer holiday during which retailers offer discounts and promotions. It falls on the last Friday of November, right after Thanksgiving. Black Friday in North America is considered the day of the year’s largest sales and price reductions, and is also associated with the start of pre-Christmas shopping.

And although Black Friday has American origins, it also has a growing number of supporters in Poland.

This year, Black Friday falls on November 24.