Like the rest of us, cybercriminals love public holidays and festivals. But as Andy Churley explains, they have very different reasons to look forward to certain times of the year.
I started contemplating this subject in December and at the time of writing it is now past Valentine’s Day and rapidly heading towards Easter. The year ahead for cybercriminals is a busy one, bouncing from one public holiday to another, using any excuse as an opportunity to dream up another too-good-to-be-true online offer. The past three months have produced a staggering range of cybercrime.
December
December was a busy time for online counterfeiters, fraudsters and other digital criminals. On ‘Cyber Monday’—December 17, 2012—$1.25 billion was racked up in online sales. At this time NetNames saw a huge increase in the number of online offers for sale for the most popular toys such as the new Furby, the Leap Pad 2 and the Nintendo WiiU. NetNames discovered more than 88,000 listings for popular Christmas toys on one well-known marketplace site alone—a good proportion of which off ered counterfeit products from well-known brands.
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Cybercrime, public holidays, counterfeiting, UDRP, cybersquatting
