Holiday Scams: How to Protect Yourself

Holiday Scams: How to Protect Yourself

With the holidays fast approaching, unfortunately, there are unsavory individuals out there who enjoy taking advantage of everyone else’s good nature during this time of year. In order to help protect yourself, CyberlinkASP is pleased to present some of the more common holiday scams you could encounter this holiday season.

  1. Solicitations for donations to bogus charitable organizations. Scammers are excellent at making their fake charities sound legitimate. Those people who fall for their scam might give them debit or credit card numbers and risk identity theft. If you like helping others, make donations directly to the organizations you support.
  2. Online ads for “real” letters from Santa. Most of these ads are scams to get you to provide your credit or debit card number, as well as personal details about you and your children. Instead, get a relative, co-worker, or friend to pen the letters by hand to give your children.
  3. Emails containing links to holiday e-cards. Hackers can install malware and viruses into these e-cards and, once you open them, you are infected. You could also risk the malware to open up “doorways” where a hacker could access your device and obtain your personal information. While e-cards can be fun, it is better to send traditional holiday cards through the mail.

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As you are gearing up for your holiday festivities, decorating, cooking, baking, or traveling, please remember holiday scams are real. Please feel free to contact the experts at CyberlinkASP by calling (972) 262-5200 to learn about ways to protect your business and devices using our application hosting and remote desktop services.