How to dodge Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping hackers

Hackers are writing apps, setting up phony Wi-Fi networks and unleashing malware in attempts to turn legitimate Black Friday 2016 and Cyber Monday retailing into profits for themselves, according to security experts.

Bad actors are stealing personal information like passwords and credit card numbers, compromising computers and phones, and blackmailing retailers with hopes of lining their pockets, researchers say.

For example, researchers at RiskIQ found frequent cases of criminals linking the names of legitimate brands to sketchy applications and Web sites in order to lure unsuspecting shoppers.

They looked at five popular e-commerce brands to see how often their names appeared along with the term Black Friday in the titles or descriptions of black-listed applications. The research didn’t reveal the names of the retailers, but found that they lined up with bogus apps from 8.4% to 16% of the time.

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