In a WGNTV Midday interview, identity‑theft specialist Robert Siciliano (Hotspot Shield) outlines common holiday‑season cyber scams and practical prevention tips. He explains how phishing emails that mimic major retailers can deliver malware or lead to credential‑stealing spoof sites, urging viewers to avoid clicking links and instead navigate directly to retailer sites. He warns about deceptive advertising on social media and email, noting that offers that seem too good to be true (e.g., 50% off gift certificates) are likely scams. Siciliano describes "chilling charities"—fake charitable solicitations via email or phone—and advises verifying charities through official websites before donating. He stresses monitoring point‑of‑sale and credit‑card activity, setting up alerts, and regularly reviewing statements to catch unauthorized charges. For mobile devices, he recommends downloading apps only from trusted stores, using mobile security software, and protecting public Wi‑Fi with a VPN such as Hotspot Shield. Finally, he covers ATM skimming, recommending covering the keypad when entering PINs and vigilant statement review. The interview frames the Sony Pictures hack as a broader reminder that large breaches signal heightened risk for everyday consumers during the holiday shopping period.
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We are in the middle of the season for giving, shopping, and holiday cyber scams. In fact, there are at least a dozen scams out there you should know about. Robert Siciliano has details. He's an identity theft expert with the company Hotspot Shield. Robert, good to have you back.
Thank you.
Yeah, we've been talking about this huge hack at Sony Pictures. Uh, would you agree that it's kind of a wake-up call for everyone, isn't it? If the bad guys can get into Sony's computers, they can certainly get into ours, right?
They've gotten into so many PCs over the past year, so many data breaches have occurred. This is the year of the breach. Sony unfortunately is no exception. The type of information that's being downloaded and exposed is unfortunate. With the 12 Scams of Christmas, these are everyday scams that culminate around the holidays. For example, when you receive an email that looks like it's coming from a major retailer like a Target or Home Depot, it may or may not be legit, it could be fake. What I always suggest people do is never click on the links in the body of an email because every time you click on a link in the body of an email, one of two things happens. You either A, download a malicious virus and that virus basically is spyware on your PC. Also, you could click a link to bring you to a spoofed website. That spoofed website is designed to get your credentials. So the best thing you can do is to essentially go directly to the retailer's website and look for any deals there.
Certainly. Deceptive advertising, that's also a trick to lure you in, isn't it?
Yeah, so when McAfee put together the 12 Scams for the Holidays, deceptive advertising was right on top because with deceptive advertising, that means that every time you either get an email or you're on social and you see some type of an advertisement like a too good to be true offer, for example, if you see an advertisement on somebody's Facebook page that says IKEA is giving gift certificates for 50% off today, click this link, chances are that's gonna be a scam because no retailer in their mind is gonna give 50% off of anything. So anything that's too good to be true, whether it's via social or an email, anything you see, you have to pay close attention to it and just go directly to the retailer's website.
Yeah, and another of your dozen Christmas scams is something you call chilling charities. These are fake charities, right?
Yeah, so McAfee has seen so many fake charities come in via email, even over the phone this year. So anytime you get any type of inbound communication that says, "Hey, we're this wonderful charity, you know who we are, you've seen us before, click this link to enter your credit card information, to go to this website," or even if they call you over the phone, I never ever give money out over the phone, credit cards and so forth. Really the best thing to do is to go online to whatever your charity might be. I mean, you know what Red Cross is, it's redcross.org and so forth. Do a quick search on all the charities, find their legitimate website if you wanna make a donation.
Excellent advice. Also, there are some scams that we really can't help but fall victim to. At point-of-sale stuff, like, like Target. Yeah, when all of their computers—
you don't have any real control over when you give your credit card out to any retailer. So you basically lose control over that credit card number the second you give it out over the phone or online or even at the point of sale at the retail store. So the best thing to do is to pay very close attention to your credit card statements. You get them monthly. You can pay attention to paper statements every single month. You can also sign up online to look at your statements every day if you want. You can also download your bank or credit card company's mobile application, right? So you can see your statements often. What I have done also too is I've gone to my bank and credit card company's websites and I have actually signed up for alerts and notifications. With alerts and notifications, you get a text message or an email every single time a charge is made. That way you're fully in tune with all the activity on your cards.
And listen, just final few seconds. I'm afraid we're not gonna be able to get all these scams in, but one of the— is, is our handheld devices.
Yeah, be careful of your handheld devices, especially mobiles. The applications you download, make sure that they are from approved application stores. McAfee actually has their McAfee Mobile Security. You also wanna make sure you have wireless is protected, a VPN such as something from my client Hotspot Shield. You download that and it protects your free Wi-Fi connections.
Okay, we're gonna fit maybe one more in. ATMs are really a huge source of scams, aren't they?
Yes, ATMs are a big deal. So whenever I go to an ATM, I'm always suspect. You have to be. Over the card slot might be a skimming device designed to steal the credentials off the back of the magnetic strip. The best thing to do is to cover up the keypad with your other hand as you're entering your PIN code into the keypad. This way bad guys can't see your PIN as you're entering in, and always pay close attention to your statements every single day.
My apologies, we only got about 8 or 7 or 8 of those, uh, 12 Scams of Christmas. And Robert Siciliano, thank you so much. We're going to put all of them on our website, wgntv.com/midday. But thank you so much for joining us, uh, and we will be right back.
