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Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Trend Micro Canada's Top Tips for Safe and Secure Online Shopping
OTTAWA, Nov. 22, 2012, 2012 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) --
'Tis the Season to Stay Secure
With this year's cyber holiday shopping
season about to begin, Canadians in record numbers will be online
looking for perfect gifts, deals and bargains. Unfortunately shoppers
and sellers aren't the only ones who will be busy. Cybercriminals are
bound to be out in force this season.
An estimated sixty percent of Canadians --an increase from 49% in 2011(1) -- will go online during the course of their holiday shopping to find
the lowest available price, research potential gifts and purchase gifts
for friends and family. In the process, many will unwillingly hand over
personal banking and credit card information, or accidentally download
malware.
"Online shopping is designed to make holiday gift giving convenient.
That convenience should not come with the added worry and cost of lost
information, privacy and security," says Trend Micro Canada's Laura
Maio, director of marketing. "A few minutes of your attention will go a
long way to make sure your online activity and mobile device is
secure. And that adds up to a safe and stress free holiday shopping
experience."
Online shoppers need to take the following precautions:
1. For Mobile users: Use your smart phone or tablet's built in security
features.
Take five minutes to configure location and security settings.
2. Avoid using free but unsecured wifi.
Automatically accessing open wireless means opening the door to anyone.
Keep your automatic wifi option turned off on laptops, tablets and
mobile devices.
3. Look before you click.
Scrutinize every link, or mobile app regardless of source. According to
recent Trend Micro research, one in five users end up at an unexpected
on line location after clicking a link. Some of these locations
download malicious apps, others offer "too good to be true" deals
designed to reveal individual private banking or credit card
information. Every link is not what it seems -- the first Android
Trojan came under the guise of a Windows media player.
4. Before saying yes, understand what you are being asked.
Be careful about granting access to personal or device information or
allowing apps to perform unnecessary functions in order to work. Many
free mobile apps use mobile adware to recoup the cost of the app, and
these ads frequently pose serious privacy-related threats, accessing
information such as call history, phone numbers, user location
(determined by GPS) and unique information about the phone, without the
user knowing.
5. Consider the small cost of an effective security app for your phone
or laptop.
Sometimes common sense isn't enough to prevent a digital disaster. For
example, Trend Micro's Mobile Security for Android secures mobile
banking transactions, blocks access to malicious sites and notifies
users if the mobile app has malicious, or privacy-breaching tendencies.
Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the global cloud security leader, creates a world safe for exchanging digital information with its
Internet content security and threat management solutions for
businesses and consumers. A pioneer in server security with over 20 years' experience, we deliver top-ranked client, server
and cloud-based security that fits our customers' and partners' needs,
stops new threats faster, and protects data in physical, virtualized and cloud environments. Powered by the industry-leading Trend MicroTM Smart Protection NetworkTM global threat intelligence data-mining framework, our products and
services stop threats where they emerge - from the Internet. More than
1000 talented threat researchers around the world support these
efforts.
_________________________
(1)Deloitte 2012 Holiday outlook survey
SOURCE: Trend Micro Canada
To view this news release in HTML formatting, please use the following URL: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/November2012/22/c2529.html
SOURCE: Trend Micro Canada
Trend Micro Canada Media Contact: Claire M. Tallarico 416 616 9940
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