Festive deals come with phishing scams

Increase in cyberattacks and fraud due to Deepavali

Tushar Mathur (name changed), 48-year old Delhi-based creative art director, wanted to gift his wife a Louis Vuitton bag for Deepavali and decided to order it online. After seeing great ‘festive’ deals on the seemingly-genuine website -- LouisVuitton.in, Mr. Mathur paid Rs 36,000 for the bag. The bag was delivered to his place as promised, only it turned out to be a cheap imitation. Mr. Mathur tried to visit the website again to complain but the website no longer existed.

Mr. Mathur is not alone. While the festive season is a boom time for online retailers and bargain hunters, cyber criminals also take advantage of this surge in online transactions.

According to cyber security solution provider Check Point Software Technologies (CPTS), every year around festive season there is a spike in the number of new domains registered that contain the word ‘Deepavali’. “This year we found a 200% increase in the number of new domains registered that contain the word ‘Deepavali’. Three per cent of these domains have been found to be malicious and another 31% are suspicious,” Harish Kumar, Head, Enterprise & Government, CPTS, India & SAARC told The Hindu.