The UK government is issuing a warning this week to all companies to make cybersecurity an “absolute priority”, following recent cyberattacks on retailers Marks & Spencer, Harrods, and the Co-op. UK cabinet office minister Pat McFadden is reported to have held a briefing last week with national security officials and the CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, Richard Horne, aimed at providing support to the three retail groups.
The UK retailers, Marks & Spencer, Harrods and the Co-Op, who have been hit by a flurry of cyber-attacks over the last two weeks, have immediately experienced a loss in consumer and investor confidence.
Cybercriminals now have an unprecedented of highly effective custom-made tools designed to defraud online retailers and shoppers during the holiday season. “As we approach the end of 2024, the upcoming holiday season and events like Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas bring millions of shoppers online with attractive discounts and limited-time offers. They also create ideal conditions for cybercriminals to exploit users and shoppers,” warns threat intelligence firm FortiGuard in its report, Threat Actor Readiness for the Upcoming Holiday Season.
Scammers have stolen £11.4 billion from UK citizens over the last 12 months. According to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance’s (GASA) latest report, The State of Scams in the UK, conducted in association with the UK’s leading fraud prevention service, Cifas, this represents an increase of £4 billion over the previous year. With the Black Friday sales bonanza looming on both sides of the Atlantic, the findings come as a timely warning to online shoppers. GASA and Cifas anticipate a further spike in scam attempts this week and re-urging consumers to remain vigilant. The warning comes as 1 in 7 (15 percent) consumers surveyed said they lost cash to criminals in 2024, an increase from 10 percent in 2023. The average loss per victim was £1,400, and only 18 percent of victims recovered all their money.
Over 72,000 US consumers may have had their account details compromised following a cyber-attack on denim clothing giant Levi Strauss & Co. Almost two weeks ago, on June 13, Levi’s spotted an unusual spike in activity on its consumer-facing website and immediately realized its users were under threat. “Our investigation showed characteristics associated with a “credential stuffing” attack where bad actor(s) who have obtained compromised account credentials from another source (such as a third-party data breach) then use a bot attack to test these credentials against another website – in this case www.levis.com,” said Levi’s in a published notice detailing the data breach.
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