With Black Friday kicking off the holiday shopping season soon, a security company from New Brunswick is urging caution to online shoppers.
Beauceron Security says advancements in artificial intelligence is making it easier for online scammers to target victims.
“We are wired, as humans, to the concept that seeing is believing,” says Beauceron Security CEO David Shipley. “On the internet, you need to trust nothing and you need to check everything.”
Shipley says that includes advertisements that may appear genuine on social media sites such as Facebook.
“Based on Reuters reporting we know that up to 10 per cent of Facebook’s ad revenue, which we could broadly infer as one in ten ads, are fraud,” says Shipley. “That is almost 16 billion dollars in fraud being perpetrated.”
Shipley says Black Friday and the holidays are the times of the year when his company sees the greatest increase of fraud, noting that the quick advancement in AI is fuelling a rise in scams.
“This time of year is the worst time for fraud,” says Shipley. “We’ve seen a massive rise in things like email phishing scams and others and AI has made it so easy for consumer-grade criminals to have leading edge approaches both in terms of their ability to figure who to target, when to target and to craft the right messages delivered not just by email, but text message, phone calls, social media.”
Shipley recommends people take extra care when shopping online, advising people to always shop through company’s trusted websites or to consider shopping locally.
“Buying from your own downtown’s stores and malls, the good news is it allows you to avoid scams,” says Shipley. “Even better news, you’re also buying local and supporting the Canadian economy.”
