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Black Friday \u2013 the official beginning of the holiday shopping season \u2013 has passed, and that means there\u2019s a feeding frenzy of money-hungry retailers who would step over their own grandmothers to pilfer your pockets. Unfortunately, shoppers \u2013 Pavlov dogs that they are \u2013 are no better as they salivate over the chance to save fifty bucks on an HDTV. An anthropologist\u2019s dream, these shoppers revert to a pack mentality that leaves us wondering if the act of coming down from the trees 80,000 years ago was nothing more than a symbolic gesture. We\u2019ve already seen signs of the madness<\/a> throughout the US, but it\u2019s safe to say that many parts of the world will be prime targets over the next several weeks for a summary divorce between you and your money.<\/p>\nUnfortunately, while retailers crawl over each other in an attempt to empty the contents of your left pockets, spammers are silently lining up to take what\u2019s left from your right pockets. It\u2019s long been known that spam is a seasonal business<\/a> \u2013 those wily scam artists target events and fragile psychologies, seemingly better than anyone \u2013 and no season is bigger in the Western world than Christmas, thanks to Coca-Cola<\/a>, Wal-Mart, Macy\u2019s, and other money-driven organizations that rely on a small, six week window to make or break their bottom lines. That makes this time of the year incredibly dangerous, not just for our credit card bills, but for the ever-increasing risks of identity theft, email scams, and malicious software designed to silently soak up every piece of information that the enterprising spammer needs to have a merry Christmas indeed.<\/p>\n Here are a few considerations you should make, this and every holiday season, to protect yourself from a visit from the spam elf:<\/p>\n Christmas is stressful. There\u2019s plenty of research to suggest that Christmas is not only incredibly stressful, in fact it\u2019s downright deadly<\/a>. Massive stresses on the wallet are exacerbated by the pressures to deal with family. To make matters worse, in this part of the world, the icy blasts of arctic air shoot through you like a million tiny icicles. The days become very short, with most people waking in darkness, and dealing with it again when they arrive home for supper. The phenomenon known as seasonal affective disorder<\/a> is so pervasive in modern society that it\u2019s generated its own business in light therapy devices<\/a>. The holiday season is stressful, plain and simple, and when people become stressed out, they become fatigued, and they don\u2019t think so clearly. It\u2019s a prime opportunity for spammers to slip one past you as you sift through the unending glut of email that bombards inboxes this time of year.<\/p>\n Spammers aren\u2019t nearly as dumb<\/a> as they appear to be. We\u2019ve been seeing more and better phishing attempts, and it appears that the phishers are very successful<\/a>, pulling down a cool $687 million in the first half of this year. In fact, the spam business as a whole is a $20 billion business<\/a>, and as long as it\u2019s making that kind of coin, we can expect spam purveyors to do everything it takes to keep their solid gold pools in working condition. That makes the minefield even more treacherous, because spammers will do whatever it takes to prey on innocent users. People are far more vulnerable when they\u2019re tired and stressed, and there\u2019s no stress like holiday stress.<\/p>\n 2012 has seen an interesting and disturbing shift<\/a> in the state of spam. While overall numbers of email spam continue to decline, the amount of dangerous spam is on the rise. Some criminals have even made a business<\/a> out of equipping other wannabe criminals, with 2012 seeing the release of Blackhole 2.0<\/a>. Spam emails are laden with malicious links and images (an attempt at getting around spam filters), and a single click could be devastating. Kaspersky Labs are reporting that<\/a>, while spam levels continue to dip, spam messages with malicious attachments are on an alarming rise.<\/p>\nStressors<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Smarter spammers<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Malware under the Christmas tree<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Making it personal<\/strong><\/h2>\n