7 out of 10 shoppers risk their online security in exchange for discounts

Black Friday marks the official start of the christmas shopping season, with offers and discounted prices that sometimes hide a scam and, despite this, seven out of ten buyers are willing to put your safety at risk in online stores in exchange for discounts.

Nearly half (48%) of consumers have been the target of a scam while shopping online during the holiday season, according to the 2024 Norton Cyber ​​Safety Insights Report: Holiday.

It also indicates that more than half (53%) They are worried about Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday scams (Cyber ​​Monday), and despite this, with the increase in prices of many products, there are those who take risks in search of the best bargains.

87 percent of online shoppers spend more time searching for discount codes. According to the Norton report, 67 percent register on mailing lists, respond to surveys or interact on social networks just to get a discount code.

These actions carry more cybersecurity risks than most buyers realize, as the cybersecurity company points out, since scammers create fake promotions or clone websites legitimate to obtain personal data.

The excitement and desire to get a deal can make people vulnerable to these types of scams. However, almost half (39%) of buyers are willing to share personal information, such as phone numbers and emailsfor a discount equal to or less than 25 percent.

While buyers rush into sales, ‘malvertising’ and ‘adware’‘ -two types of cyber scams related to advertisements and promotions- They are the cyber threats that increase the most during the Christmas season.

Based on data from last year’s campaign, ‘malvertising’ attacks, that is, malicious ads that usually appear when consumers search for promotions, increased by 53 percent. For its part, ‘adware’, malicious ‘software’ that is often distributed through ‘malvertising’, recorded an increase of 227 percent in the same period.