As thousands of Canadians are on the hunt for deals during Amazon Prime Day this week, cybersecurity experts are sounding the alarm over fraudsters posing as the company online. Amazon Prime Big Deal Days started on Tuesday and will run until Wednesday. The event, exclusively for Prime members, is offering hundreds of major discounts on merchandise.
Cybersecurity expert Ritesh Kotak says the company has been warning of scams on its site, after over 1,000 new Amazon domain names were created in the last month. Kotak says it’s likely that most of those new websites, offering deals and discounts linked to Amazon, will be fraudulent. "There's going to be a lot of fake websites out there and you might get links saying, 'click on this because we have this fantastic deal related to Amazon Prime,'" Kotak told CTV's Patricia Boal on Tuesday.
"You're going to click on it, but in actuality it’s going to take you to a fake site that is going to try to collect your information and, in some cases, you might be shipped a product, but it could be counterfeit." Kotak says fraudsters have become more sophisticated and it can often be difficult to distinguish between a real or fake version of the Amazon website. "These hackers and fraudsters are able to use generative AI tools to make it really mirror one from the website, and they can do it with just a click of a mouse," he said.
CTV News Ottawa reported in August about a Gatineau, Que. woman who fell victim to a phone scam that resulted i.