Friday 9 March 2018

5 Ways To Stay Safe While Online Shopping


Online Shopping has become the preferred medium for shopping for billions of people all over the world. It’s easy, it’s convenient and most importantly, it gives you the best deals like never before. You can easily browse through thousands of products in a short period as compared to what it would take for you to look at them in real life. However, as easy as online shopping might be, it has become the target of hackers who want to exploit people and sites for their own personal gain. It is important to stay safe online, and when you receive the shipping boxes of your order of course. Here are a few tips that one can implement when they are shopping online to have an overall better experience and avoid any hurdles along the way.

Use Known Websites
One of the best ways to stay safe while shopping is to use websites that you know about and which are known to implement good security measures. Sites like Amazon are big names and therefore try to implement the best security measures possible to prevent anyone from breaking into their systems. If you do want to use a site that is not as popular as the big names, you may want to take a few extra security measures to prevent your information from being stolen and misused.

Be Careful Of What Information You Give Out
When making a purchase site tend to ask for your credit/debit card number, its expiry, and your name. Anything beyond that and you are giving the site more information than they need, which can raise a red flag for anyone who wants to be secure while making payments online. The less the site knows about your identity, the harder it is for hackers who break in to be able to find your information.


Check Your Bank Statements
It is always important to check your bank statements regularly to ensure that you aren’t being charged anything additional than what you intended to pay when making your purchase. Sometimes, the sites that you make your payments on can sometimes charge you something additional. Even if it is incredibly small, it is worth reporting since it does amount to fraud on their end.

Get An Antivirus
Sometimes, simply using a site can infect your PC. If you have your personal information there, it will be easier than ever to get to that information and compromise your financials. Always have a good antivirus up and running to prevent your information from being taken away from you and to prevent your system from being compromised. There are plenty of free and paid antiviruses that work well, so you can find the one that’s right for you and install it to be safe.


Don’t Go Easy On Your Passwords
It is always important to have strong passwords wherever you go. If you have to create a password while creating an account on a site, use a string of alphabets and numbers instead of an actual word to make it the most secure. Hackers can use tools to brute force into an account, which scans words to be able to figure out a password, which is why random alphabets work best to stay protected while shopping online to prevent your information from being misused.