Shopping on the Internet is convenient and a great way to find deals. Several online retailers such as Target, Best Buy and Toys R Us offer discounted prices or free items for simply shopping online.
With the holidays approaching, more Americans will spend time in front of their computer rather than in the mall searching for gifts. A report by MasterCard estimates U.S. consumers spent $36 billion in online purchases during the 2010 holiday season (November and December). With Forrester Research predicting 2011 will see a 7 percent increase in online sales over 2010, we can project $38 billion in online purchases during the 2011 holiday season.
However, cyber thieves are online as well. Alan Wlasuk, CEO of 403 Web Security, a full service, secure web application development company, shared with the Recorder how readers can stay safe while online:
n PayPal Is a Great Alternative to Your Own Credit Card – While PayPal is not accepted by many retailers, I would strongly recommend you use it as often as you can. Not only does PayPal keep your personal credit information private, it also gives you the ability to reject a product that doesn’t match your expectations.
n Spot Phishing Attacks -We’re Americans; we trust people, banks and retailers we know. When we get an email from a trusted retail store advertising a bargain just for the holiday we feel like we have been treated with the respect only a loyal shopper deserves.
n The problem is, that email may not have come from the retail store we know and love and the website it sends us to may be hosted in the Balkans, just waiting for us to enter our store credit card information.
n My caution is to never fully trust an email from a retail store, and never, ever follow the link within the email. If you see an email with a bargain, enter the store URL yourself and check it out.
n Never Surf From a Public Terminal – It is surprisingly easy to install a key logger on a public terminal. These pieces of stealth software will record your every keystroke and automatically send your entire public terminal session to the hacker that installed the software. My advice: always cyber shop from home. But if you have to use public WIFI (i.e., Starbucks), only use your own computer. Always assume any public computer has been tainted.
n Monitor Your Online Credit Card Usage – Most personal credit card companies give you the ability to check your purchases online; some even provide an iPhone or Android app. If you use your credit card for online purchases I would strongly suggest checking for authorized card purchases every few days.
n Use Strong and Unique Passwords – I will continually remind people to use strong passwords as long as I wander the security business. Your five-letter dog’s name is embarrassingly easy to guess, as is your first name followed by your birth year. Even if you use a 12-letter, randomly composed password, using it more than once is dumb. If that latest social network you just signed up for gets hacked, your break-proof password becomes public. If you use that same password for your Schwab account you could be cyber toast.
