Online holiday shopping leaves computers infected by malware

The busiest day for some types of cyberattacks in Las Vegas appears to have been Dec. 1, according to data recently released by Florida-based Enigma Software Group.

The biggest day for malware infections during the holiday shopping season doesn’t necessarily fall on the busiest days for holiday shopping, like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, said company spokesman Ryan Gerding.

Locally, “the day with the most malware infections was Dec. 1, with a jump of 221.64 percent over typical levels,” Gerding said. Nationally, he said, Wednesday saw the most malware infections, with a jump of 162.53 percent over typical levels.

Just because the busiest online shopping days of the year have passed doesn’t mean malicious cyberactors are taking a break, he said.

Gerding said malware infections are running 88.6 percent higher than normal from Black Friday through Wednesday in Las Vegas.

“The danger is still there,” he said. “That’s partly because what we’re finding is a lot of the bad guys are using bogus emails to try to trick you into clicking on a link to infect your computer with malware.”

Malicious cyberattackers know that ’tis the season for people to be expecting emails about holiday packages and tracking information.

“So the bad guys send an email that says, ‘There’s a problem with tracking your order.’ And instead of an actual problem, it’s a link that downloads malware.”

Several different types of malware that can be installed on your computer.

Some will take over the default search engine in a browser or create unwanted pop-up ads.

“There are people out there who will do whatever they can to increase eyeballs looking at advertisements,” Gerding said.

Other malware takes over computers and holds files hostage.

Some malware installs a fake infection spotting program, charging customers to get rid of the fake infections the program says it finds on computers.

“As more people do more shopping online, this is only going to get worse,” he said.

Enigma Software Group makes the SpyHunter anti-malware product. Gerding said the company only analyzed “large cities for which we consider there to be a statistically significant number of infections.”

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.