Commodity turnover: how scammers speculate on Black Friday sales
Online scammers can use the theme of "Black Friday", the traditional November sales season, to deceive Russians, experts have warned about this. Attackers are attracted by the high activity and rush of buyers, which can be used to lure data and money. For more information about what schemes to expect from scammers before the autumn sales in 2026, what are the dangers of such tricks and how to protect yourself from them, read the Izvestia article.
What is the Black Friday theme interesting for scammers?
"Black Friday" is the most noisy marketing season of the year, says the deputy director of the analytical center of the Ural Center for Security Systems (UCSB) in an interview with Izvestia Diana Zhukova. Everyone who has bought online, left items in their shopping cart, or subscribed to store newsletters receives dozens of emails, push notifications, and discount messages.
— This creates a background against which the phishing message almost does not stand out, — says the expert. — A person buys at several sites at the same time during the sales season and can easily confuse a fake letter with a real one.
An additional factor is the emotional pressure created by the stores themselves, including countdown timers and labels about only a few remaining units of goods, says Sergey Shcherbakov, technical director of Stakhanovets, an expert in the field of information security and IT. Customers think that they need to pay for the product quickly so that it doesn't run out — this gives scammers the opportunity to rush them.
The scammers, according to the source, are preparing for the November sales in advance: they create websites, newsletters and advertisements in a few weeks, so by the time the promotions start, they already have the infrastructure ready for deception. The predictability of Black Friday gives attackers time to prepare and increases the effectiveness of deception schemes.
What schemes on the topic of "Black Friday" to expect in 2026
On the eve of Black Friday in 2026, we should expect the appearance of copies of stores and marketplaces, non-existent sales, fake gift certificates and sweepstakes, says Alexander Vurasko, Director of development at the Solar AURA Monitoring Center for External Digital Threats.
"In one case, a person will transfer money for a product that does not exist, in the other, they will leave card details or a password on a fake page," the Izvestia interlocutor clarifies. — These are different mechanisms of theft, although both can start with the same advertisement. Such options have already been described by Solar AURA specialists when analyzing previous sales.
According to Alexander Vurasko, special attention should be paid to messages after placing an order. The buyer may be informed that the payment has failed, the parcel has been delayed, it is necessary to pay extra for delivery or issue a refund. When a person is actually waiting for a few purchases, it's easier to mistake such an appeal for the present. In turn, Diana Zhukova points out that in 2026, the trend for personalized messages based on a digital footprint is gaining momentum: an email mentioning a real recent order and the exact amount is much more difficult to distinguish from a legitimate one than a mass mailing.
— The growth here will not be in the number of attacks, but in their conversion, — the expert expects. — Attackers get purchase data from leaks from online stores and delivery services, among other things. The second, more technically complex method is the introduction of malicious code into the online resources of the store, which imperceptibly collects card data and allows you to receive information about customer orders.
Before Black Friday, attackers can also create externally legitimate websites related to the campaign and promote them by buying advertising space and poisoning search results, adds Ivan Liukin, an analyst at the Positive Technologies research group. As a result, the very first sites that appear in the search engine may turn out to be malicious.
What schemes on the topic of "Black Friday" have you seen before
Meanwhile, network scammers have been trying to use various schemes on the topic of "Black Friday" for several years. Attackers, as a rule, resort to proven methods: they create fake pages of popular marketplaces, brands and online stores, and also send messages on behalf of large retail chains and online platforms with attractive discounts on sought-after goods, says Evgeny Egorov, a leading analyst at the Digital Risk Protection department of F6.
— As a rule, cybercriminals lure victims with very low prices or "unique" offers "only here and now" — ostensibly for the liquidation of the collection or a special period of sales, — the interlocutor of Izvestia notes. — If the price of a product on a questionable resource is noticeably lower than the market price, even taking into account the sale, this is a reason to be wary.
Other tricks in the scammers' arsenal include discounts as an excuse to play a "win-win" game with redirection to a link to a phishing site, as well as more sophisticated schemes in which they allegedly require installing an application that is actually malicious software to track an order, the expert adds. This allows attackers to gain access to the victims' devices.
The audience of such schemes is extremely wide, and scammers segment "legends" for each group: teenagers are caught with discounts on games and gaming accounts, families with children's goods and seasonal sales, active online buyers with "personal offers," says Diana Zhukova. At the same time, older people are at particular risk, more often trusting the calls of "store employees" and "delivery services."
"The main consequence of fraudulent attacks is the loss of money for non—existent goods or services," warns Vladislav Shelepov, threat analyst at GSOC of Gazinformservice. — But, in addition, if the victim enters the card details on a phishing site or installs a malicious application, the attackers can gain access to valuable information, and the stolen account can be used further to deceive other people.
How to protect yourself from Black Friday schemes
In order to protect themselves from fraud schemes on the topic of November sales, experts interviewed by Izvestia advise following certain cybersecurity rules. One of the key things that is always important to remember is not to report SMS codes, says Vitaly Fomin, head of information security analytics at the Digital Economy League.
"Neither store employees, nor couriers, nor support services should request confirmation codes to access bank accounts or personal accounts," the expert emphasizes. — If someone is trying to do this, hang up or do not reply to such messages.
During Black Friday, it is important not to allow the desire to save money to influence the assessment of the safety of a purchase, notes Vitaly Fomin. Even a very attractive offer should not be a reason to abandon basic checks. It is better to think in advance about which product you need to buy, and focus on trusted sites. It will also help you analyze the current price of a particular model and avoid getting caught trying to discount an inflated price.
If the product appears in an email newsletter or in contextual advertising, it is better to go to the official website yourself, rather than following the provided link. The browser analyzes the search history of a particular user and can show any suggestions, including from a phishing resource.
—Access store websites only through official channels, do not enter payment information via links from emails or messengers, carefully check domain names for typos, and use reliable security solutions that help identify fraudulent resources and malicious files," concludes Anna Osipova, senior spam analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
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