As Amazon Prime Day approaches on the 12th and 13th of July, Check Point Research (CPR) has warned of the danger of scams around the event.

With Amazon among the top imitated brands, fraudsters are looking to use interest in Amazon Prime Day in order to create scams and lure in victims.

According to the cybersecurity group, it has already witnessed a 37% increase in daily Amazon-related phishing attacks in the first week of July compared to the daily average in June.

Also in June, there were almost 1,900 new domains related to the term “amazon” of which 9.5% were found to be risky – either malicious or suspicious.

The company added that in June last year, when Amazon Prime Day was held, it saw an 86% increase in phishing emails relating to the occasion, and a 16% increase in phishing URLs compared to the previous month.

However, the company noted that before Prime Day 2021, it found 2,303 new Amazon-related domains, with 78% found to be risky.

According to the group, this can be partly explained by cybercriminals not always having the full term “amazon” included in the domain to avoid detection. Links to these websites are often contained in phishing emails, designed to look like legitimate messages from Amazon.

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CPR provided a list of things to watch out for if you receive a suspicious email.

• Fake domains: Look out for domain names designed to mimic legitimate or trusted ones. These can be easy to spot, such as coming from Arnazon instead of Amazon. But can you tell the difference between Amazon and Amаzon – the last one uses a Cyrillic а instead of a Latin a.
• Bad grammar and spelling: Since scammers may not be fluent in their victim’s language, phishing emails often contain grammatical and spelling errors. Even the tone of the email may be wrong – too formal or informal.
• Unusual attachments: Beware any unsolicited emails that carry unusual or suspicious attachments. This includes ZIP files or attached Microsoft Office document.
• Sense of urgency: Phishing emails commonly tell their recipients that something needs to be done right away. This is because someone in a hurry is less likely to think about whether the email looks suspicious or is legitimate.
• Fear and blackmail: Some phishing emails threaten consequences (such as revealing allegedly stolen sensitive data) if the recipient doesn’t do what the attacker says. The fear of embarrassment or punishment convinces the recipient to comply.

If you suspect your email is suspicious, the first rule is don’t reply, click links or open attachments. The most move is to report it if you are part of an organisation, and then to delete it.

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