The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has published its holiday online-shopping guidance, and this year’s theme is AI. Scammers are using “increasingly convincing techniques to steal personal and financial information,” the guidance says, MobileSyrup reports.
What to watch for
- Fake storefronts, checkout pages and payment sites, now easy to generate along with fake ads and reviews.
- Lookalike web addresses, like a zero instead of an “o”. They’re especially hard to spot on phones.
- Requests to pay outside normal checkout: e-transfer, gift cards or crypto.
- Links and QR codes in texts and emails.
On AI shopping assistants, the guidance is blunt: “AI tools cannot reliably determine whether a seller, website or offer is trustworthy.” Treat their recommendations as “guidance, not assurances of legitimacy.”
If you get scammed: call your bank or card issuer, reset any affected passwords, tell people close to you, and report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, even if you didn’t lose money.
Why it matters: The old tell-tale signs, like broken English and sloppy design, are disappearing. The habits that still work are boring ones: buy from sellers you can verify, type addresses yourself instead of tapping links, use a credit card for its chargeback protection, and turn on multi-factor authentication.
