Online shopping increases during the holiday season — and so does the risk of cyber threats.
Hackers use phishing and other schemes to try to steal credit card numbers and other sensitive personal information.
To protect yourself, the CyberSafe at USPS team offers these tips:
- Make sure shopping sites are secure, legitimate and credible. Hackers can create sites to lure unsuspecting customers into cyber traps. When purchasing items from a new or unknown site, research it before providing any payment information.
- Use secure and different passwords. Repeated use of the same passwords helps hackers access numerous profiles. Passwords should use a minimum of 15 characters, including uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters such as “!” or “@.”
- Be wary of emails and attachments. Watch out for unknown senders or requests for password or account information. Emails that sound too good to be true or contain misspellings and grammatical errors can also be signs of potential cyber threats.
USPS encourages employees to report suspicious online activity by emailing the CyberSecurity Operations Center at CyberSafe@usps.gov.
The CyberSafe at USPS Blue site and the new public site have additional information.