Indians plan to shop online this holiday season using Internet, mobile phones- Mcafee

ECONOMIC TIMES: An online survey conducted by global security technology company McAfee has found that an increasing number of Indians are planning to do shop online this holiday season, using the Internet and their mobile phones. About 70% of the 1,100 Indians surveyed by Harris Interactive, which carried out the study, said they would shop online. In the light of these findings, McAfee also added that this would, however, expose them to various kinds of online scams as well.

Among the ‘12 scams of Christmas’ that McAfee has identified for onlineshopping Indians to beware of are social media scams (where scammers will use sites like Facebook and Twitter to offer special discounts on products); malicious mobile apps that could be accidentally downloaded that could steal your information or even send out premium-rate text messages without your knowledge; travel scams and phoney deals that seek your financial details.

Holiday spam and phishing that offer special gifts, fake charities seeking donations, online cards that may contain viruses and fake classifieds plugging great holiday deals and part- time jobs that may require you to reveal a little too much personal information, should also set off alarm bells for online shoppers.

The survey found that compared to other countries, India ranks highest (67%) on the metrics of respondents worrying about personal information being stolen while using a mobile app on the smart phone or tablet. Still, an astounding 95%of them are willing to provide some level of personal information to receive an offer that is of value to them. India also scored highest on the ranking of sharing credit card details in order to receive such offers. Indians are also more likely to be victims of a cyber-scam; some 23% of the respondents had actually fallen victim to this earlier and almost 25% of them knew of someone else who has.