SonicWALL, Inc, a leading secure network infrastructure company, today identified the top threats holiday well-wishers and online shoppers face this shopping season.

1. Online Purchases: If you receive an email that your "Credit Card was Denied" the best course of action is to contact the vendor directly using a phone number or email address you obtained from their website.
2. After Holiday Attacks: Carefully review all the credit card charges and make sure you know that all are valid.
3. Greeting Cards: Millions of e-greeting cards will be sent this holiday--some of them will be scams. Contact the sender through some other means and find out if the card is real before you proceed.
4. Package Delivery Services: This type of phishing threat takes the form of a friendly notice from a package delivery service - don’t click on the link within the email – instead find the package tracking number and see if it matches the tracking number on the email.
5. Holiday-themed videos: Using the holiday as the hook, you're certain to receive an invitation or two to watch the latest "Santa Gets Stuck in a Chimney" video. If the invitation is from an unknown person - delete it.
6. Social media threats: Over this past year, phishing and spam attacks dramatically increased on popular social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. Decide right now, who are your real friends to avoid junk.
7. Drive by Savings: Around the holidays we go to web sites we don't typically visit. Some of these sites may ask you to disable your pop-up blocker to "get extra savings", - the results may be more email spam in your inbox.
8. Strange Searches: Following a "Christmas" search results can take consumers to a web site hosting malware. If you click on a search link and you are asked to download anything, stop the search immediately.
9. Password Requests: If you plan on tweeting about your holiday greetings - your credentials may be subject to exploits and the address books may be used for e-mail harvesting. Have different passwords for each different service.
10. Out of Date Passwords: The biggest trick happens when your system protection is out of date or is non-existent during the busy holiday shopping season. Make sure your firewall is up to date.

To test your phishing IQ knowledge before the holiday season begins, go to: www.sonicwall.com/phishing

For more information about phishing, malware and other related threats, go to: http://www.sonicwall.com/securitycenter   

Page 1 of the article