BARCELONA, Spain, Dec. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The online shopping season now spans nearly three months of discounts and temporary promotions. It is an attractive period for consumers, but also a major opportunity for cybercriminals, who take advantage of urgency and offer saturation to introduce fraudulent websites, apps that mimic legitimate ones, emails designed to steal data, and downloads that hide malware. While users are more aware, fraudsters have refined their techniques, making it harder to distinguish genuine offers from disguised traps.
Softonic publishes this guide to help users recognise clear signs of fraud, understand which categories of applications improve online safety, and adopt good practices to avoid malicious downloads. The goal is not to demonise technology, but to understand where threats lie and how to reduce risk.
Clear signs to identify online scams
1. On shopping websites
- Disproportionately low prices: discounts above 70% on recent or popular products.
- Incomplete legal information: missing legal notice, privacy or returns policy, company details.
- Newly created pages: generic designs or recycled photos.
- Limited payment methods: only transfers, cryptocurrencies or unknown gateways.
- Suspicious reviews: overly positive, repetitive or no external verification.
2. In mobile applications
- Excessive permissions: access to contacts, microphone, SMS or full storage.
- Imitation of real apps.
- Very low downloads despite professional design.
- Negative reviews about unexpected closures or unjustified requests for bank data.
3. In emails and messages
- Fake or similar domains.
- Urgent tone asking to confirm or recover orders.
- Attachments or shortened links requesting action.
- Unprofessional design or lack of personalisation.
Applications that assist with safer shopping
- Price comparison tools to check price history and detect fake discounts.
- Shop-verification extensions analysing reputation, certificates and reviews.
- Expense-management apps to detect unauthorised charges.
- Parcel-tracking tools that avoid reliance on SMS links.
- Security apps: antivirus, VPNs, secure browsers and permission scanners.
- Password managers and multi-factor authentication tools.
Practical tips to avoid misleading downloads
- Check permissions before installing.
- Download only from official platforms.
- Keep devices updated.
- Verify developers and external reviews.
- Avoid downloads prompted by urgent messages-courier companies never require external apps.
Online shopping can be safe when users recognise warning signs, understand fraud patterns and rely on trusted tools and platforms such as Softonic.
Media Contact
Alexandra Berman
a.berman@romanrm.com
