Especially with the costs of living biting, there is even more emphasis on protecting everyone from being scammed this Christmas. Sadly, thousands of people were, last year, losing on average one thousand pounds each to fraud as they shopped online over the festive period.

They were duped by criminals posing as genuine sellers on popular online marketplaces. These fraudsters were offering deals on tech, cars and designer gear which proved too good to be true.

As we approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when millions of consumers – many of whom will be tightening their belts – are looking for the best deals, we know fraudsters will have bargain-hunting shoppers in their sights.

This is why, The National Cyber Security Centre, National Crime Agency and the City of London Police (through Action Fraud) are launching a campaign to help keep online shoppers more secure in the run up to Christmas.

At this difficult time, let’s work together to stop the cyber grinches from stealing Christmas this year.

While we are doing all we can to prevent attacks getting through – 2.1 million cyber-enabled commodity campaigns were stopped in their tracks last year – and taking action to pursue and disrupt offenders and bring them to justice, still too many people get scammed.