Is cybercrime seasonal? Why online scammers love Valentine's Day

01-03-2013

Andy Churley

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.


Cybercrime, public holidays, counterfeiting, UDRP, cybersquatting

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