Black Friday, Cyber Monday are prime time for online fraud
With an increase in transactions and spending comes a rise in risk for retailers.
More than 180 million Americans will shop in-store or online from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation, which expects to see a record number of shoppers this year.
In-store Black Friday sales will drive the most traffic as 72% of shoppers plan to make purchases on November 24, 2023. Slightly less than 40% of shoppers said they’ll partake in Cyber Monday deals.
With an increase in transactions and spending, however, comes a rise in risk for retailers, who may find themselves on the receiving end of some not-so-jolly holiday cyber antics.
SEON, a provider of fraud prevention software, predicts Cyber Week 2022 will see a jump in fraud attempts – with a possible increase of 57% on Black Friday (November 25) and of 100% on Cyber Monday (November 28) from 2021. They expect bad actors will lean heavily on bot programs and fake profiles to execute their schemes.
A certain amount of fraud during the holiday shopping rush may be unavoidable, but there are things eCommerce businesses can do to prepare for and protect themselves against things like fraudulent chargebacks or the use of stolen credit cards. Some actions SEON suggests businesses should take include:
- Take time to review the previous year’s Cyber Week data. Make note of any transactions made during that period that ended up as fraudulent chargebacks, and label them as such in your machine learning system in order to detect any patterns.
- Keep your risk management teams in the loop about Cyber Week deals that could draw increased traffic and transactions so they can be properly prepared to handle any problems that may arise.
- Be aware that phishing attempts – with fraudsters attempting to trick consumers with faux websites and deals – are rampant during Cyber Week. Your cybersecurity team should actively keep an eye out for these kinds of attacks to help prevent customer data from being stolen.