It’s officially the Christmas holiday shopping season and scammers are happily draining online shoppers gift budgets with wild abandon. The FBI warned consumers last week that holiday-related fraud is growing. E-commerce sales should exceed $260 billion this year and even if scammers maintain the same activity as 2023, they should come away with a cool $10 billion. No matter what the cybersecurity industry comes up with in the form of protections for consumers it is negated by retail platforms like Amazon, Google and Temu.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), identifies individuals aged 18 to 39 are 25% more likely to fall victim to online shopping scams than older adults. These shoppers rely heavily on e-commerce platforms and social media ads that are scams disguised as unbelievable holiday deals.
Cutting back
One might think that online retailers are ramping up systems to curb that kind of abuse. You would be very wrong. According to recent reports, retailers are growing security spending by 8% in 2024, compared to rates of rates of 16% and 17% seen in 2021 and 2022 respectively. In some cases, retailers are cutting security budgets.
