Nowadays online shopping becomes very popular and the reason of popularity is its convenient way. This latest way of shopping makes one able to shop from anywhere, only they need are internet and a Smartphone or PC. But every pros has their cons, online shopping also has some cons which are necessary to know everyone that do online shopping.
We know that internet is full with cyber criminals, so that it is necessary to apply some precautions while buying anything online or paying them. According to IID's third Quarter eCrime Report for 201 phishing attacks is down, as much as 8% since the 2nd quarter and 11% since the third quarter of last year. It is such great news for the internet users but malware (malicious code aimed at compromising your privacy) attacks has increased by 89% since the 2nd quarter.
Don’t worry, because you can do online shopping without any problem simply you have to apply some safety. While doing online shopping user needs to apply some common sense and practical advice. Follow these given basic guidelines and one can shop online without any fear. Bellow 5 tips are given for staying safe online.
1. Use Familiar and official Websites
When you search any item on Google then it will given you thousand of results, there are many online shopping websites are available that available to give you good service. But it is necessary to do online shopping or buy anything only from the familiar sites or you can also go for the official site of your product you are searching for. There are lots of popular websites that provide you good online contents with safe payment. Be careful of misspellings or sites with a dissimilar top-level domain (.net in the place of .com, for example) those are the oldest tricks in the book. First confirm that the site that you want to visit is genuine or not, after confirming start shopping.
2. Look for the Lock
Avoid buy anything online through your credit card from a site that doesn't have SSL (secure sockets layer) encryption installed. This is very important that the site has SSL because the URL for the site url has HTTPS:// (instead of just HTTP://). An icon of a locked padlock will come into view, usually in the status bar at the bottom of the internet browser. It depends on your browser; along with these avoid giving your personal information like credit card number, email id or password to others.
3. Don't Tell All
There is no any online shopping store that requires your social security number or your date of birth to do business. Avoid participating on nay online survey that ask you to enter your personal information. These are actually the way to do phishing, it is the way where online criminals try to cheat you out of your sign-in credentials and even credit card info by imagined to be a actual website, or even an online bank. So be aware while doing anything online.
4. Check Statements
Don't wait for the end of month for your bill to come. Go online after a fix time of interval and check electronic statements for your credit card, debit card, and checking accounts. If any wrong payment found then immediately address the matter to your bank. If you want to pay the bill through your credit card then do this only when you know all your charges are accurate. For any problem you have only 30 days to inform the bank or card issuer.
5. Use Strong Passwords
Always use different password for different account, it is very basic thing of online account holders. Nowadays every people have more than on online account related to their private and financial data, online accounts like online banking, Facebook, twitter etc. These all have very critical information related to you, so it is necessary to protect them with some more security layers. If password of all your accounts is same then hackers can harm you deeply by knowing your password with any trick. So that it is important to set different password for different accounts.
The above given tips will protect you financially while you are online, but along with the given tricks it is also necessary to apply some common sense when you are doing anything online.
