Fraudsters take advantage of our Christmas spirit, by ramping up their efforts to steal personal information such as bank details, over the festive period. Here’s one way to avoid getting caught up in such a scheme

Scams are rife around this time of year, but there are several ways to protect yourself. With fraudsters ready to exploit the sudden demand for gifts and food, many cyber criminals will ramp up their efforts over the festive period. Take, for example, the ever-so clever Christmas party scam which nearly left one mum transferring her WhatsApp data over to a complete stranger.

If you receive a text message, email, phone call or even physical letter than doesn’t look right – make sure you report it, and never give over any personal information if you’re even a little bit hesitant. Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET, says if you’re expecting any deliveries – always visit the official delivery service’s website directly, rather than clicking on links that could be from imposters.

When scrolling on social media, you’ll probably come across endless adverts for a whole host of Christmas gifts – but not all of them will be legitimate. If you spot a deal that seems too good to be true, the chances are it is.

“Fraudulent sites tend to collect lots of personal and financial information so it’s a good idea to limit the amount of information you provide,” Jake said in a statement sent to the Mirror. “If you have to create an account for any product you are purchasing, use brand new, unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication.”

The UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre therefore recommends using strong and unique passwords for all your accounts, especially logins that have access to sensitive information and banking accounts. “You should also provide additional protection by setting up 2-step verification (2SV) on your email account, which will prevent a criminal from accessing your email account even if they know your password,” the body added.

There are certain password managers today that can create hard-to-crack passwords on your behalf. These usually contain a long list of numbers, letters, and special characters that would be hard to memorise. Many people therefore opt for the ‘three random words’ approach, where they pick three objects and use them to construct an unusual password name. It goes without saying that you should avoid passwords that are easy to crack, such as ‘password’ or words containing information about yourself, including your name and date of birth.

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