Fortinet, a specialist in broad, integrated and automated cyber security solutions, on Thursday reminded online shoppers to keep their mobile devices secure and stay vigilant against cybercriminals, before participating in Alibaba’s “11/11” Singles’ Day − the world’s largest online shopping festival and the Cyber Monday sale in the United States.

Alibaba’s sale on Sunday is expected to spark off numerous online retail carnivals across the Asia-Pacific, it said.

In 2017, the event rewrote the record books when it generated US$25.3 billion sales in one day.

Due to high phone penetration, consumers are increasingly relying on their mobile devices and tablets to conduct online transactions from e-banking and e-payments to e-hailing and a myriad of shopping apps.

According to Mastercard’s Mobile Shopping Survey 2017, mobile shopping is registering higher growth in APAC’s emerging markets, outpacing their more developed counterparts.

“Thailand’s penchant for mobile shopping is expected to fuel a rise in cyber-attacks and cyber-scams, particularly as we enter year-end online shopping season, such as Singles’ Day and Cyber Monday,” said David Maciejak, director of security research at Fortinet.

Fortinet offers online shoppers five safety tips to keep their mobile device secure:

• Create strong passwords and change them regularly

• Regularly back up and save data from mobile devices to removable media, and keep them in a different and secure location.

• Encrypting files to protect unauthorised people and hackers from viewing data on the devices.

• Install and maintain antivirus software

• Install and maintain a firewall

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Startup_and_IT/30358228