The surge in online purchases seen since the beginning of the pandemic also means Canadians are more exposed to scams popping up online. To help combat the growth in scams CIRA, the .CA registry, announce a partnership with ScamAdviser, a global leader in anti-scam technology, to integrate protection against fraudulent websites into CIRA Canadian Shield. This added layer of protection will safeguard Canadians’ families against online scams and fraudulent websites.
According to Statistics Canada, 82% of Canadians shopped online in 2020, and the popularity of e-commerce grows every day. Canadians can now shop a little safer online by adding the protection of CIRA Canadian Shield and ScamAdviser’s anti-scam feed directly to their devices. ScamAdviser continuously tracks for known scams and crawls websites using an algorithm that looks for scam cues. The online shopper will be blocked from visiting sites with very high fraud scores, protecting users from theft and misrepresented products.
Canadian Shield already detects and blocks more than 100,000 new malicious phishing and malware sites every day. By adding ScamAdviser Trust Score, CIRA aims at increasing the number of threats averted.
The CIRA Canadian Shield will block websites with a high-risk score based on more than 40 scam cues that include the IP address of the webserver, the availability to contact the website owners, the age of the URL, ratings on review sites, and more. Every month, ScamAdviser scans 1 million new domains. Its data is used by anti-virus companies, browsers, and internet filters to protect more than 1 billion consumers worldwide. To date, CIRA Canadian Shield has been installed more than 2 million times across Canada averting, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, more than51,000 reports of fraud with almost $1.5 million in theft in Canada as of August 2021.
“Since the launch of CIRA Canadian Shield, our goal has been to make the internet safer for Canadians,” said Tanya O’Callaghan, vice president, Community Investment, Policy and Advocacy, CIRA. “Trust is critical to the internet, and with this partnership with ScamAdviser, we are taking another step forward to protect Canadians from online scams, continuing our mission to build a trusted internet for everyone.”
“We are extremely proud to collaborate with CIRA. ScamAdviser’s mission is to prevent consumers from getting scammed,” said Jorij Abraham, general manager Ecommerce Foundation, ScamAdviser. “Our data will enhance CIRA’s outstanding work protecting Canadian consumers from cyber threats and online scams. I hope to see more countries follow CIRA’s lead in ensuring a safe internet experience for its citizens.”