October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, which is a great time to educate yourself on current scams and fraud. Cybersecurity Expert and Global Head of Fraud Services for Visa, Michael Jabbara, joined Rosie with a public service announcement.

Why should consumers stay on alert during the holiday season?

“Fraudsters have been innovating their scams and plans over the past few months in anticipation that consumers will be buying more this holiday season. It’s critical to think about where you are shopping and who you are sharing your information with.”

What are some threats you are seeing right now?

“New innovations that are great from a consumer perspective are also helpful from a fraud perspective. Think about Chat GPT, where fraudsters are using it to come up with phishing emails that are much more convincing than previously. Be cautious of online shopping and spoof websites that are designed to look like a real store, but are really set up to steal your information. Also watch out for ads that promote something that is too good to be true. When you click on these ads you could be downloading malware onto your computer.”

What’s being done to help consumers?

“One of the core things we focus on at Visa is security. We have invested over 10 billion dollars over the last five years, which has allowed us to prevent over 30 billion dollars in attempted fraud in the last 6 months alone.”

What else is being done to help prevent cybercrime?

“Visa partners with law enforcement to make sure we are disrupting fraud. We help in educating policy makers and elected officials on the landscape of the threats that we are seeing today at events that we are hosting such as the one in D.C. called the Visa Payments Loft.”

For more information, visit www.Visa.com/blog.

This segment is paid for by Visa and is intended as an advertisement. Opinions expressed by the guest(s) on this program are solely those of the guest(s) and are not endorsed by this television station.