{"id":67847,"date":"2025-11-21T09:47:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/?p=67847"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:24:08","slug":"tis-the-season-to-be-cautious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.devon.gov.uk\/news\/tis-the-season-to-be-cautious\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Tis the season to be cautious!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>As Black Friday and the Christmas season approaches, we&#8217;re warning people to be aware of scams.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Phishing emails are on the rise as cyber criminals exploit the flood of promotional emails and online shopping traffic, to make their scams look legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their goal is to blend in, to trick you into clicking malicious links or sharing sensitive information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Criminals sometimes create fake websites that mimic legitimate retailers or use the name of well-known brands, often promoting on social media sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Can You Do?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>pause before you click \u2013 if an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>shop with trusted retailers, bookmark them in your browser. You might not get an incredible deal but you\u2019re less likely to get scammed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>check the sender \u2013 hover over email addresses and links to verify authenticity<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>avoid websites with no contact information, broken contact forms or personal email addresses. A lack of physical addresses, phone numbers, customer service contacts and clear return policies are often clues of suspicious website<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>examine the web address and be suspicious if it looks just like one you\u2019ve used in the past but the domain name or store name is different For example, you may be used to shopping at Amazon, whose website address is www.amazon.com, but end up at a fake website that looks similar, but has the website address&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aamazon.deals\/\" rel=\"noopener\">aamazon.deals<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>search for reviews. Type the store\u2019s URL into a search engine to see what others have said about it<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>avoid the urgency traps \u2013 Phishing emails often use phrases like \u201cact now!\u201d or \u201climited time offer.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>report suspicious emails \u2013 use the \u201cReport Phishing\u201d button in Outlook<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>secure your accounts \u2013 enable &#8216;multi factor authentication&#8217; and passkeys wherever they\u2019re available<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s important to remember that phishing doesn\u2019t catch us because we\u2019re clueless. It catches us because we\u2019re human \u2013 when we\u2019re tired and distracted or just trying to survive the week! Phishing doesn\u2019t prey on our intelligence, it preys on our emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":67848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-dcc-homepage"],"acf":[],"featured_image":{"ID":67848,"title":"News Page size (53)","alt":"A person looking at a website on his laptop, and he is holding his credit card, as if to make a 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