As Black Friday and Cyber Monday creep up, you may have noticed deals popping up left, right, and centre. It’s the perfect time to stress-buy for your in-laws as Christmas inches closer, quicker than we’d like to admit…
From the influx of huge red SALE signs blanketing our browsers and high streets, to the once-in-a-lifetime discounts that you can’t pass by!, it’s more important than ever to make sure you stay vigilant in this time of increased spending. It’s no coincidence Black Friday has been dubbed Black Fraud Day by the Guardian. Want to avoid falling victim to Black Friday scams? Read on to learn the biggest risks to you and how you can prevent them.
Fake Websites and Adverts
Alongside spending, impersonations spike massively during Black Friday. Be it advertisements, websites, or even social media accounts promoting fake giveaways. In October 2025, fake Amazon websites surged by 232% compared to September. These pages are created with eerily similar logos and designs, with the intention of stealing personal details or installing malware. Researchers note that with the growing popularity of Generative AI, the process of new website generation with malicious landing pages is significantly higher this year.
Top Tip: Always check the domain name and look for odd details in visual content, for example: www.amazon.com versus www.amazon-net.com or www.amazonn.com.
Phishing Emails
Year-round, phishing is one of the biggest threats to cybersecurity, with more than 90% of attacks starting with a phishing email. This risk rises on Black Friday, with unexpected emails impersonating retailers popping up. These messages often claim to host giveaways, discounts, missed deliveries, and competitions you didn’t enter but coincidentally won! Yay! Right? Hackers aim to take personal and financial details, with the intention of scamming you now or later in the future.
Top Tip: Never click suspicious links and verify senders’ email addresses via legitimate websites. If it’s too good to be true, it likely is!
Weak Passwords
Retailers frequently experience surges in brute force attacks, where scammers aim to break into customer accounts by mass-guessing login details. Some of the most common passwords to this day include ‘123456’ and ‘password’.
Top Tip: If a company notifies you of a password change out of your knowledge, immediately contact them to prevent unauthorised access and temporarily freeze your card if it could be at risk. If you use the same password on multiple sites, now’s the time to change it!
How can I detect a scam before clicking?
While each scam manifests in different ways, there are key characteristics you can look out for when assessing the trustworthiness of a source:
Look at the quality of the content: Spelling and grammatical errors, pixelated images, awkward logos and bad formatting. Would the official Amazon site have ‘Amazon Hall’ written on their first page instead of ‘Haul’? We’d hope not…
Check the offer: Does the offer look too good to be true? 99% off your dream gadget or gizmo, it likely is…
Urgency and scarcity: If you feel rushed to sign away details or give out personal information, this should ring alarm bells. Scammers use urgency triggers to trick people into purchasing without thinking. Phrases such as “Only available for the next hour!” or “just two left in stock!” are crafted to deliberately make you feel like it’s now or never.
Check links and email addresses: Emails from John@Daffodil-group.com are more likely to be authentic than emails from JohnDaffodil1@gmail.com. Check legitimate websites to see if emails align and contact before clicking any links.
Stay vigilant
The most important thing you can do is to avoid clicking any suspicious links or giving out personal details without verifying their validity. Black Friday is a great time to catch up with shopping for the holiday season, but there’s nothing less festive than losing out…
Want to stay extra safe? Pick our brains on how to stay cybersecure? Get in touch and let’s chat! No expectations, just honest talk.
