The biggest shopping day of the year is over, but there are still millions of people out there who haven’t quite finished yet. Many of these people will be doing their Christmas shopping online, and they need to know how to keep their identities safe so they don’t become the next victims of an online scam. This is the favorite season of hackers because they know that many people will be online with credit cards in hand. They also know that shoppers are so busy completing their shopping lists that they are not likely to be aware of intrusions or fraudulent transactions. Shoppers also need to be careful when they use credit cards in retail stores. Most of these stores do not have adequate protection for your financial credentials, even if they claim to keep industry standards.
Identity is Key
Thieves start their scams with a person’s identity. With this they scrape for other bits of personal information that they can easily find online or through public records. By keeping identities safe, shoppers can avoid scams that leave them with a huge headache that can ruin their holidays.
The first thing you can do to secure your identity is to lay low. We are all fond of letting loved ones know what’s up by posting our plans on social media. This habit needs to be curtailed. Telling the world about your shopping plans or what you have already bought alerts potential scammers to where they might trap you. And it gives them ideas on what tactics will work to scam you as well. Don’t trust your social network to keep these posts private or to a limited audience of your choosing. Hackers have been able to infiltrate social networks for years.
For secure identities and safe shopping, the best thing to do is use cash. But if you can’t, like when you are doing online shopping, consider using a more secure payment gateway, or a payment system that has a reputation for keeping user identities private. There are several systems that, although not foolproof, have a much better track record for securing finances. Using these payment methods will not secure your identity, however, if you have accounts on online stores. For these, you have to trust the store that you are visiting. Some will require just a username and password and maybe an email. In these cases you can simply create a fake name and use an email that is just for this account. This will lead thieves and scammers to a dead end if they are ever able to crack your online account. It will also save you from scams since the miscreants will be sending malicious links to the dummy email.
When you are ready to start shopping, make sure that you have done your homework. Whether online or at store outlets, know about the stores that you are going to shop at. Do they have a good history of keeping customer data safe? Have they been associated with cases of fraud? When you shop online, check web addresses carefully to be sure that you are visiting the right store. Many fraudsters try to take people to fake sites where malware is waiting to infect their computers. Many succeed because they create web pages that have names which are very similar to the real websites of top and trusted brands. This includes shortened URLs. If you are on mobile, don’t follow these links. Instead, type in the complete web address. This is the only way to be sure you are visiting the real website.
If there’s a new store that you have heard of and want to try, make sure you do thorough research so that you can find out about any past history. This is also a good shopping practice regardless of cyber security. Getting to know your store will allow you to tell if your order delivery is protected, if you can return faulty products, and the like. Read customer feedback as well, and not just what you find on their website. There are a lot of review sites that are more likely to have honest negative reviews.
Before you create your accounts and whip out your payment details, get a VPN account. VPNs are the best tools these days for keeping online activities private. These are the only proven tools for defeating online tracking and monitoring systems. Some of these systems are very stealthy and readily available to hackers. VPNs will keep them off your trail by diverting your traffic and encrypting it so that nothing can be taken from the stream that can be used against you.
The websites that you use should have HTTPS on all their pages. Using HTTPS on the shopping cart pages or payment pages is not enough. Thieves can get a lot of information about you from tracking your activities on unsecured pages. This is the information that they have used to trick millions of other customers. But if the site you know and love still does not use HTTPS, your VPN will help you stay protected. You should also install a plugin like HTTPS Everywhere. It is released by the Electronic Frontier foundation, a well known legitimate privacy and digital rights organization.
Public WiFi should be avoided at all costs, but as with using credit cards, if you don’t have another option, there is a way to stay safe. First, make sure that the device that you use to connect to WiFi hotspots does not have personal information on it. Disconnect any accounts that log in automatically when you go online. And remove any stored information that can give criminals a way into your system or accounts. Your VPN should also be on at all times. Free WiFi is constantly monitored by the bad guys, and they are just waiting for the first unprotected someone to give them the slightest lead.
Before and after you finish browsing the web, make sure you clear your browsing history. This is very important especially if someone else has access to your computer. You need no make sure that your browser isn’t sending out any information about previous searches that thieves can pick up. You should also clean your browser from cookies and set it to reject all the cookies you can. Some cookies are needed for certain websites to function and others you will need to accept automatically if you want to use a website. Try a browser anti-tracking extension to easily allow or disallow certain trackers from operating on different websites.
