Aside from what Steff mentioned, I don't think there's anything particularly special going on.
Ganking is just a fact of life along certain transit corridors - particularly Niarja and Uedama, the 0.5 systems between Jita and either Amarr or Dodixie, respectively. Ganking activity also typically picks up on weekends compared to weekday levels.
The saying "don't fly what you can't afford to lose" applies to anything that might show up on a killmail, of course. As a general rule, if what you're carrying/fitting is worth more than what it would take to blow you up, consider yourself a target at all times.
If you have low to medium-volume shipments of high value to move, use a cloaky ship of appropriate size (covops, recon, blockade runner). If it's high-volume, or you don't have access to a cloaky ship, have a third party like Push Industries or Red Frog move it for you.
If, say, you are missioning in a ganky area, like a mission hub in lower highsec, only fit the bling that you need to make your fit work. Don't go full-on ERMAGERD FERKSHERN TERNK just because you can - if all your fit needs is a single medium-range faction module to make it work well enough for what missions you're doing, then don't fit more than that - I rarely fit more than one or two faction modules to a missioning ship, and even then it's only for fitting or cap stability reasons.