Mississippians Urged to Guard Against Cyber Threats During Holiday Shopping Season

JACKSON, Miss. – While Cyber Monday is a convenient alternative to Black Friday for some holiday cyber-shoppers, it’s also busy a busy season for cyber-criminals. Cybersecurity experts say there are warning signs Mississippians can look at for and steps they can take to protect their personal information from hackers. 

Richard Stewart is the cyber unit team lead at the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security. He says the holiday season comes with a surge in phishing emails being sent where hackers pose as retailers and send legitimate looking emails.

“That will usually trick a lot of shoppers into clicking on a malicious link that will either give up their password credentials or may download a virus onto their system,” Stewart said. “So be very, very aware of phishing messages.

More than 90% of successful cyber attacks begin with a phishing email, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Alongside avoiding suspicious links, Stuart says it’s important to use a different and complex password for each online account. That both makes it more difficult for a hacker to crack and prevents them from gaining access to multiple accounts with one password. 

“A four to six character password, those can be brute forced and broken very easily,” Stewart said. “We encourage the use of at least a 12 character password with at least one special character, like an ampersand or a number.”

Stewart also says it’s unwise to store credit card information on any website when shopping online because the convenience isn’t worth the security risk.