Study Shows Consumers Are Worrying More And Shopping Less This Festive Season

According to a new survey, consumers are worrying more and shopping less this festive season. More than ever, shoppers think it's not worth spending on items that aren't going to help them save money or give them any joy.

Aflac, the financial protection and health Services Company, has released results from its 2022 Aflac Holiday Health Issues research. The study surveyed how 80% of US Adult consumers will spend this festive period by planning to limit the number of gifts they give this year in light of the growing market volatility.

It’s that time of year when the hustle and bustle of the festive season hit peak levels. For some businesses, the time to get your content and promotions in front of your target audience is now. Theoretically, there might be a chance to have business-to-business emails managed to open: For 70 percent of workers, the holiday season is less about being with family and more about finishing a project or getting back on track after a tough break.

The days of easy holiday sales may indeed be gone. In fact, a recent survey revealed that 67% of consumers intend to reduce their Festive spending. The most popular savings activities include organizing events (50%), going to parties (43%), offering gifts (35%), and sending cards (30%).

This season does not come with happiness for many individuals: 50% become worried, while above 40% feel unfortunate. Women and Younger Generations are more likely to suffer anxiety now. According to potential causes, 44% of individuals do not think their salary has managed to keep up with a rise in regular expenditures.

According to the latest employee survey, roughly seventy percent felt that they were spending their money well on their needs in 2022. That includes basic needs like the rent of a house, health issues, and transportation. However, sick off is something that 60% of people would rather "push over" than do. This comprises 70% of workers at the office, 62% of virtual employees, and 65% of blended employees

In addition, 30 percent have taken fewer days off this year compared to 20 percent who took more. Half of the parents surveyed said they took less time off this year than expected. A third expect to take more time off than they did last year, while only 21 percent expect to take as much time off this year as last year. The reason employees took time off from work this year was due to doctor’s visits and health appointments, mental health days, and some holidays with family.

This holiday season will be particularly challenging for some residents of lower-income households, as they are striving to afford the basics and health care costs. In fact, many consumers may have no choice but to pay for their own doctor visits this month, according to a study released by Aflac Benefits Solutions.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

This year, social media frauds resulted in a loss of over 930 million dollars for US consumers

As reported by AtlasVPN, US customers suffered a significant loss of $931M because of scams made through social media this year, equating to an average of $3.4M each day

From January 2022 to September, around 131,409 instances of scams made with social media were reported. Around twelve percent of reported scams occurred through social media, but most of the money was made through this medium compared to other ways.

According to the data shared by the Federal Trade Commission, there were about 136,553 cases of scams in which apps and websites were used, this put the web and app in second place which made a loss of $692 million for consumers from January to September 2022.

In the third position, stands the scams made by calling different people’s phone numbers. As per the FTC data, 229,494 cases of scams were recorded from January to September 2022 which resulted in a loss of $590 million for consumers.

Email fraud is in the fourth position, with 195,571 reported cases from January to September of 2022, resulting in a loss of $309 million for victims.

Frauds made by text messages ranked in 5th place, resulting in a loss of $231 million for victims. Most of the reports were of scams by text messages. It should be noted here that nearly 252,647 cases were reported from January 2022 to September 2022 making this type the least lucrative for scammers.

Cybercriminals also used adverts that just pop up during browsing or scrolling. Although the FTC recorded only 27,678 instances of this fraud, they resulted in a loss of $131 million for victims.

Around 25,803 scams made through the mail were also reported by US customers, which resulted in a loss of $53 million for scammed customers.

It's important to get some awareness of holiday scams, as many people become victims of this type of fraud each year. Some of the most common scams made with social media during vacations are discussed below.

As per the report from AtlasVPN, social media scammers also do scams by creating fake fund-raisings and fraud people to donate online by showing themselves as a legal organization for charity. Moreover, they can create charity or fund-raising websites to trick people into donating, as well.

So, it is advised to properly go through the organization you're donating to. In case there is no information available or very less information available or just something seems off, then take your time and try to find a more reputable charity

A private poll showed that nearly 50% of customers who use social media became victims of scams that are done through online shopping. In this type of scam, scammers create online stores that are fake and pretend that they are selling rare brand items at a very low price, and use social media for popularity. Make sure you understand that expensive brands are never available at such low prices as the fake online stores show and you can also check for customer reviews. Besides, shop only on the official websites of trusted brands. Check the website URL, spelling, content inside it, and graphics, if anything seems suspicious, then chances are high that it’s a fake site. Use internationally approved payment methods. Never send payments directly to any seller’s account.

Gift exchanges that are done online might look harmless, but they can be used for fraud as well. These schemes are not legal due to the usage of gambling as their base of profit and people who are using such schemes for personal benefit could be arrested as per the country’s law. Ensure your safety from so-called gift exchange frauds by not participating in them online.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Bill Gates Gets Emotional While Sharing His Growing Concerns About Climate Change

The thought of being a grandparent seems to be an emotional affair for Bill Gates. The leading software giant was recently seen speaking in detail about his thoughts regarding the future of climate change.

He claims that ever since he received the news of having grandchildren, his whole perspective of the future changed. The thought of having a new generation witness the catastrophic consequences of our poor decision-making and climate change is scary and sad at the same time, he adds.

And that is what is giving a whole new dimension to his work because he’s just so much more inspired to help people survive and make the world a better place to live in that the future world can thank him and others for.

Gates went on to summarize how his Gates Foundation is working hard and doing plenty for kids in different parts of the world. This includes those nations that are poverty-stricken and where basic necessities are rare.

From providing food and shelter to education and medication, there’s a lot taking place. But this includes preparing nations for the pandemic and the fight against the likes of diseases such as polio and AIDS.

Gates similarly mentioned more about his work and what he is doing to combat the current climate change crisis. This is through both the Gates Foundation as well as support for the early stage of investments for his company called Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

So many leaders are currently working in a manner that could better impact the future which is one of the first points that he ends up making while addressing the matter. He does hope to summarize the solution for this issue by stating how important it is to eradicate global emissions of greenhouse gases by the year 2050.

As it is, extreme weather is really turning out to be a nuisance and causing suffering in various parts of the world. And if we don’t want our grandkids to suffer, we need to do something about it soon. He also stressed how the implications are massive and the challenge is huge.

Going to zero is a huge task that no human has ever been able to achieve, he concludes but we really do need to revolutionize the whole economy including how things are getting manufactured and produced.

Gates added how he joined the bandwagon for climate change after being aware of what was going on in various parts of the world. He saw farmers suffer the most and hence he vowed to take it on as his responsibility to adjust to the warming world.

Gates writes that it’s the poor people who suffer the most and businesses don’t know how to go about limiting that sort of suffering. Hence, his foundation’s role is to allow the poor to benefit from skills that people in wealthy nations have.

Not all of the billionaire’s work is philanthropic as his recent investment firm is working on a mission to decarbonize different sectors of the world’s economy.

Photo: BG / Twitter
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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google shuts down its 7-year-old feature - Web Light Page Transcoding

Google has recently announced that they are going to retire their 7-year-old services that were meant to provide support to devices that operate on slow mobile connections.

To carry out this action, Google has disabled not only the developer page for the documentation of this feature but the associated user agent as well. Web Light Page Transcoding has officially retired.

To reminisce about the past a little, this service was introduced for those who live in countries with slow mobile connections. After all, everyone deserves a fast connection, right? It seems like the world has advanced now that Google has decided to retire the feature.

What the feature did was optimize the web pages so that they used only 20% data as compared to normal web pages loading. This made the service super fast even in places where a 2G network is being used.

This feature has contributed greatly to bringing traffic to sites. It has brought approximately 50% traffic and worked only on mobile connections. It was automatically activated when the service was slow. The functionality of the feature did not get enabled on desktop or tablet devices.

Since Web Light also contributed to the ad industry, making Google ads work on a slower connection. The first place for it to get introduced was Indonesia. Then it was followed by India.

Now, in India, over 99% of mobile users have a 4G network which eradicates the need to have Google Light. This is why Google has disabled the option and it will not be available anymore.

Google Light has served its time and provided Google with some great years of service. It is time we say goodbye to the feature and let it retire in peace. The feature will be remembered in good spirits!

Read next: YouTube Tests New And Useful Features Including Automated Transcriptions And Translations
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Twitter’s Community Notes Fail to Tackle Divisive Content

Upon finally acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk spoke out about his goal to turn the social media platform into a highly accurate source of news. The Community Notes feature was a major aspect of this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up much needed context to various tweets. Users can add context to tweets that can help the spread of misinformation, but recent analysis has shown that it fails to measure up to the task at hand.

Bloomberg News attempted to analyze the feature in order to see how effective it truly was. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this analysis revealed some serious limitations that can prevent the feature from reaching its true potential. One thing that can be an enormous setback to the feature is that each Community Note needs to be approved by users from a wide range of ideological backgrounds and opinions.

It turns out that the vast majority of Community Notes, or 96% to be precise, failed to pass muster. Some topics that contain some of the worst misinformation out there include Covid, abortion as well as the legitimacy of elections around the world. In spite of the fact that this is the case, users from a diverse range of perspectives fail to come to a consensus about such topics for obvious reasons. That has the potential to make Community Notes far less effective than might have been the case otherwise.

The main issue here is that people from either end of the ideological spectrum will naturally have diverging views about the topics being discussed. Hence, attempting to get a consensus from them is nigh impossible. A much better way to legitimize community notes is to rely on something objective such as scientific consensus, but that might not be conducive to the type of fence sitting and horseshoe analysis that Elon Musk and his contemporaries have become known for as they seek simple answers to complex questions of varying kinds.

Only about thirteen notes end up getting posted on a daily basis, and that has left 30,000 in the wilderness with all things having been considered and taken into account. Musk has revoked a lot of Twitter’s authority when it comes to combatting misinformation, citing free speech as a value that should be held higher than anything else. However, when free speech comes at the cost of understanding the truth, it’s hard to argue that it is something worth fighting for particularly in the manner that Musk seems to be attempting.

This is not to say that Community Notes are ineffective. They have often been used to provide context to Elon Musk’s own tweets. However, the context is only provided for the least controversial subjects, and it can be argued that those are the subjects where context is less useful let alone necessary. Sometimes it is important to pick a side, since both sides can’t be right in every single argument.

This may be another example of Elon Musk ruining a perfectly functioning feature. While he may have good intentions, his short sighted approach may be doing some harm.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

These Android Apps Are Causing Identity Theft by Leaking API Keys

Android apps are not known for being all that secure, but people continue to use them because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up keeping them within the second biggest app ecosystem in the world. Researchers at the cybersecurity firm known as CloudSEK managed to discover hundreds of Android apps that are putting their users at risk of identity theft among other privacy violations.

Around 600 apps were reviewed as part of this study. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that around 300 of them were leaking API keys. These keys belong to transaction service providers as well as email marketing firms. Hence, malicious actors that get their hands on these keys may be able to defraud users since the keys will make them seem more legitimate than might have been the case otherwise.

Malicious actors may be able to go so far as to modify MFAs, thereby enabling them to gain access to user accounts and pose as them with no one else being the wiser. What’s worse is that these apps have received a collective 54 million downloads. Most of these users are from the US, but users from India, Spain, the UK as well as Russia have also been impacted.

The APIs that are getting leaked belong to companies as massive as MailChimp. These companies offer third party applications, all of which may end up getting compromised if the leaked keys end up in the wrong hands.

This just goes to show that users should be exceptionally discerning about the apps that they choose to use. Each app must be thoroughly vetted, otherwise the chances of malfeasance would be a little too high for comfort.

Google also needs to play its part in keeping such apps at bay, because the current state of their ecosystem is neither safe nor sustainable. Only time will tell if Google will manage to stem the rising tide of apps that are irresponsible at best and outright malicious at worst.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Is Multi-Factor Authentication Worth the Trouble? This Survey Reveals the Answer

Password protecting your online accounts used to be seen as a perfectly legitimate form of cybersecurity. In spite of the fact that this is the case, passwords are now perceived as rather lax, with many malicious actors being able to brute force their way through them without much effort. This gave rise the a new form of cybersecurity called two factor authentication which sent you a code to your phone or email as an added layer of protection in case your password got leaked.

A survey from Beyond Identity showed that many users are annoyed by 2FA or MFA. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that a large proportion of them also admitted that MFA prevented their account from getting compromised. That might make the trouble of using 2FA or MFA more worthwhile than might have been the case otherwise, and the findings of this survey certainly seem to confirm as much.

14% of respondents said that they don’t use MFA, and 38% of people who used MFAs said that they didn’t even know what it was called. However, 75% of the people who responded to this survey stated that they know what it was. 79% also said that they had gotten locked out of their own accounts due to the troubles with MFA. This is a common concern, since the added layers of protection can often work against the user by preventing them from accessing accounts without jumping through a lot of hoops.

28% of survey respondents said that they got locked out of their accounts for 5 to 15 minutes. It took over a day for around 10% of people to regain access to their accounts, and 10% never ended up getting their account back at all. Another concerning trend is the rise of MFA fatigue attacks because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up using the added layer of security against the user targets by sending them so many push notifications that they end up getting overwhelmed.

62% of users said that they had faced an MFA fatigue attack at some point in the past. 49% stated that they ended up not completing their buying journey due to frequent login attempts failing, and 53% found that they could not make a payment due to MFA. This might make MFA a bit of an issue for ecommerce platforms, because such a high proportion of consumers abandoning carts will really eat into their revenues and cause a lot of long term problems that might take some steam out of the growth of the industry.

The proportion of MFA fatigue attacks goes up with the percentage of accounts with MFA. 62% of online banking accounts used MFA, and 55% of them have faced MFA attacks as of late. 54% of Facebook accounts have also ben facing MFA fatigue attacks, which is putting some strain on the 45% of Facebook users that are using MFA to secure their accounts. All of this points to MFA being in a state of crisis, and it may need to be further tweaked to alleviate user concerns.

Read next: The Most Popular Passwords Reveal the Sorry State of Cybersecurity
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World