10 Tips to Be Assured of a Website's Security When Shopping Online

The following is a guest post from Kris, a freelancer who writes about money management tips for Credit Card Compare.

Security threats to your online shopping experience continue to grow and change as technology, and the predators that thrive on unwitting or unsuspecting consumers, continue to evolve. As e-commerce becomes an increasingly large part of our lives, we look to a number of resources and methods to help keep us safe while doing our online shopping. To decrease the chance that your personal information might fall into the wrong hands, consider the following tips that could help you increase security during your online browsing.

1. Look for security features and information When shopping online, search a website for information regarding what they do to protect your personal and financial information. You might want to check out their privacy policy, as well as their payment information page before buying anything, just to find out what information is required as well as how it is protected. Before you enter your credit card details, always check that the checkout is secure: look out for a padlock on the browser and https in the address (the 's' signifies a secure server).

2. Links Clicking on links is probably the easiest way to be led astray during your internet shopping. When online shopping, it only takes one or two misguided clicks to land you on a site that could prove dangerous. Make sure you understand what you are clicking on and keep an eye on the domain name on your web browser to ensure you are still on a trusted site.

3. User agreements Yeah, yeah, I know. Who has time to read all that legal mumbo jumbo, right? Well, when it comes to your personal and financial security when shopping or signing up for membership on a website, just as with any paper contract, it's important to know what you're signing. How sites will use your personal and financial information, restrictions, fees, user rights, and a slew of other important information is contained within those paragraphs. If nothing else, scan the subheadings for pertinent details about fees, charges, and security.

4. Advertisements If a site you are shopping on is jammed full with advertisements and pop-ups, you might want to be cautious, as this can be a warning signal that the site is more reliant on advertising revenue than actual product sales. Linked advertisements can lead you to insecure websites designed to capture your personal and financial information.

5. PayPal While most online stores have secure payment checkouts to keep your financial information safe, using PayPal can be a great way to get around having to float your information out into cyberspace. Unfortunately, not all online shopping sites accept this form of payment yet, so until then we are still forced to use credit cards at times.

6. Trusted sites & user reviews Attempting to shop on sites you're familiar with and have used before, can help you avoid scams, viruses, and other pitfalls. If you've used a particular site before and haven't had problems, it doesn't mean you won't eventually, but chances are probably better than on a site with which you are unfamiliar. If unsure, read unbiased reviews (not on selected by the site itself) by other users to see whether they've encounter issues with the site or not.

7. Virus scans & security software I run a virus scan on my computer each evening when before I go to bed. It makes me feel better about what might be lurking in the depths of my computer. Security software can also allow you to create and utilize features such as firewalls and parental controls, monitor you computer's security status, and check websites to determine whether they are trusted sites or not.

8. Shop after scanning Doing your shopping right after running your virus scan can provide some peace of mind as to whether you have any harmful spyware or viruses at work on your computer. Detecting such potentially harmful items on you computer early can decrease the threat to your security while shopping online.

9. Browse before you buy When shopping, take your time, look at various sites, and check for better deals before you commit when doing your online shopping. Not everyone or everything on the internet set to threaten your security is illegal. Your financial security is important, but if you're willing to pay $5000 for a television that's only worth $500, I'm sure someone on the internet would be willing to take the offer -- and that wouldn't be their fault, it would be yours.

10. Common sense If something doesn't seem right to you about a website, don't hesitate to investigate further. Conduct your due diligence. Remember, no one is there to hold your hand when you're internet shopping. Ensuring you and your personal and financial information remains safe, is up to you.

Comments

[Greg]

Just wanted to note that Pay Pal has a tool bar that will generate a one time use credt card number and also fill in the form for sites that don't accept Pay Pal. I have it and love it.

[Sanjay]

Pl. make sure in Address-bar of your browser, it is 'https', not just 'http' ('s' stands for secure site). You may user one-time use CC (many bank or Discover offer that).

Very common rule is don't shop around on many eCommerce websites for few cents of price difference...

[J in FL]

The thing about common sense (#10) is that it is constantly and fairly easily exploited online. Things that, if they were to happen in the offline world, would usually alert us to something bad, or would simply not make sense. But when they happen online, we tend to think differently for some reason. It's like all reason/logic goes out the window.

For example, in most cases, someone that wanted to break into your house and rob you would not announce their arrival and their intent. They would try to rob you without alerting you (if you weren't present, maybe they would ransack your place and not care..but for purposes of this example we won't go there).

It's no different in the online world. If you were to come across malicious websites (e.g. a site running a full page flash program designed to get you to download and install bad software), as I have myself, and a website is telling you that you are currently infected or in the process of getting infected by viruses, trojans, ect... it would be the same as a robber coming into your house and warning you that he's gonna steal from you. Why would he do that? He wouldn't. Just as a malicious piece of software would not want you to know it is operating on your computer.

If the software can keep itself from being detected, then it can cause the greatest damage.

And there lies the "trick." The point is to get you to panic or to confuse you and have you download the bad software, because your brain is telling you what you are seeing on your screen is not good (flashing graphics and animations, ect) and you should fix it right away.

I know all of this may sound elementary, but some of these malicious websites are quite sophisticated and look very real, and I have had to help more than a few people with this problem. I have also ran into the websites myself, and I have been very impressed each time with the level of sophistication.

Just stay alert. And in addition to safe online-specific behavior, it won't hurt to filter things through the offline B.S. meter... ask yourself, would this make sense offline?