Looking for a wall art online for your home? Are you a fan of online shopping? If you answer both of these questions with a yes, then you should know a thing or two about secured online shopping.
Gone are the days when you have to personally visit several stores just to find the equipment or item you have to purchase. While it is fairly easy to shop online, you would still want to make sure that you keep away from online scammers and hackers.There are many scammers and hackers all over the Internet, and they are after unsuspecting and inexperienced online shoppers. These individuals will do their best to cash in from the mistakes online consumers make. Hence, it is extremely important for anyone shopping online to be extra vigilant and careful when transacting online.
You can easily outsmart scammers and hackers by practicing safe and secure online shopping. Listed below are some tips provided by Internet security experts for Australian shoppers.
- Do not buy items from unfamiliar sites – Internet security professionals strongly suggest to avoid shopping at unfamiliar sites since these sites are most vulnerable to hackers and scammers. Many unpopular and new sites are likely to become targets of both hackers and scammers since they may lack necessary security features. When these sites are attacked by hackers, they can acquire the personal and credit card information of shoppers and use them for their own benefit. Even if you are only buying wall art or any simple items online, there will be some people who will take advantage of you.
- Take note of SSL encryption – You don’t have to be an Internet expert to know whether or not a website lacks security features. One of the tell-tale signs that a website has good security features is SSL (secure socket layer) encryption. Websites without SSL encryption are remarkably prone to hackers’ attacks. You can know whether or not a site has SSL encryption by simply looking at its address or status bar. If the URL starts with ‘HTTPS’ instead of ‘HTTP’, then the site has SSL encryption in it.
- Do not shop online using unsecured network – Security experts do not recommend shopping while using unsecured or public network. This means, you should avoid transacting for online shopping using unsecured wi-fi network or access. If you are about to go online shopping, it is best to do it using your personal secured network in order to avoid having your credit card information compromised.
- Regularly check your credit card statements – If you are a regular online shopper, it would be extra helpful to know whether or not you were victimized by a hacker by simply check your credit card statements on a regular basis. Do not wait for the end of the month to check your statements as you will have lower leverage in determining if you have become a victim of hackers. You may want to check your statements online at least once a week.
- Have strong password – Avoid using passwords that can be easily decoded by hackers. Do not use passwords that can be associated with your personal information like birthday as hackers can easily decode them. You would want to have a password that is a combination of lowercased and uppercased letters, numbers, and special characters. Also, make sure that you don’t let anyone know of your passwords.
It is really easy to buy wall art online, but this does not mean you can be too confident with your shopping security. It is very important to be watchful of the sites you do transactions with since there hackers and scammers are always there to target unsuspecting consumers.