Gamers looking to get their hands on the latest PS5 deals are being targeted by online scammers and criminals, experts have warned.
Researchers from security giant Kaspersky say they have already detected over a hundred suspicious resources featuring links to ‘PlayStation’ in their names.
That figure is equivalent to half the number of such websites detected between January and October, suggesting a surge of interest in targeting excited gaming fans.
PS5 deals scam
In October alone, Kaspersky says it found about 130 suspicious resources mentioning ‘PlayStation’. The threats were detected across the world, suggesting scammers were not limiting their efforts to any specific countries or regions, after the PlayStation 5 officially went on sale on November 12.
The sites Kaspersky found mainly offer visitors the chance to pre-order the PlayStation 5 by making a prepayment or by leaving personal information – which then would be stolen by the scammers and misused or sold on to criminals.
Some webpages even offered a deal on purchasing the PlayStation 5 at a lower price than the official retail cost, and other sites were found to be offering special sale prices available for the PlayStation 4, the previous console generation, with the savings attributed to the release of the new PS5.
However again, anyone entering payment information or personal details would find their data stolen and sold on, with no chance of their dream console.
“We would like to remind users that if something on the internet looks too good to be true, then it is probably a scam,” Kaspersky’s security expert Tatyana Sidorina said.
“Messages about sales and pre-orders should be checked on reliable sources and we advise against clicking on links from suspicious emails or messages on messengers and social networks. It is also recommended to install a security solution with up-to-date databases of phishing and spam resources.”
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