It's Black Friday / Cyber Monday – Are you taking the right online ...

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals await Calgarians to explore, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Canadian Anti Fraud Centre (CAFC) and RCMP remind consumers of cyber threats while shopping online.

A report from the CAFC showed 70,878 cyber frauds in Canada, with more than $530 million stolen in 2022. The Get Cyber Safe campaign encourages citizens to secure their data through the steps listed on its website. 

Some real examples indicated by Get Cyber Safe revealed that certain fraudulent sites would go as far as creating their own “brand” to trick customers. 

As Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the peak volumes for cyber scams, Calgarians can pick up some training tips from the University of Calgary for individual and business purposes.

The University of Calgary has the Cyber Assessment, Training, and Experimentation (CATE) Centre, which features a scalable cyber range that simulates digital environments, systems, threats and defences and is led and managed by industry experts for cyber safety and research.  

According to the RCMP, a small percentage of cybercrimes or frauds are being reported. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) has developed a new reporting system. 

Besides the reporting system from CAFC, Calgarians can also report cyber security issues through CPS’s Online Safety. 

One latest survey from Get Cyber Safe Awareness Tracking released that 1 in 4 Canadians feel they are not prepared to face cyber threats, 1 in 4 Canadians claimed they had been the victim of a virus, spyware, or malware on their computer, and 2 in 5 have looked up information about types of cyber security threats or how to tell if an email is a scam. 

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (within CSE) delivers information via its website and various social media channels for organizations to protect their digital landscape and cyber safety. 

“Shoppers should be wary of prices being too low, paying for merchandise online needing to be more complicated, sites that look poorly designed and stores that are missing key information, security elements, and typos or errors in the store URL,” read a Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) press release. 

To better face the challenge of increasingly sophisticated hacks and attacks, the Calgary Cybersecurity Conference held the annual BSides cybersecurity conference to tackle the skills gap. 

“Cybersecurity is not just one thing; it’s not just hackers. People are on the defensive side of things, so security operations centre analysts are doing work in secure operations centres and doing digital forensics and responses to those on the offensive side. They’re learning and finding where these holes and vulnerabilities are,” said James Cairns, the lead organizer for the conference. 

You can contact CPS at 403-266-1234 provides support for those who suffer from a financial loss, fraud, or extortion.