Even though the holiday season is over, you can ever be too careful when it comes to shopping and ordering things online. Neglecting to protect your credit card information can result in things like your bank information being stolen, and even identity theft. To avoid any of these unwanted situations in the upcoming year, be mindful of these X tips to protect your information online:

  1. Only shop on secure sites: There are thousands, if not millions of online retail stores selling everything from clothes to garden supplies to fire extinguishers. In fact, you can buy almost anything in the world nowadays with the click of a button. However, not all of these sites can be trusted, and not all of them are legitimate retailers. When shopping online, only shop from stores that have been verified as such. For instance, only sites that have a web address including “https” are secure. If there is no “s” at the end of the http, then the site is not encrypted, and cannot protect your information.
  2. Only use credit cards or payment services: While you might want to reach for your debit card when making a purchase online, you shouldn’t. Unlike credit cards or services such as Paypal, debit cards are directly linked to your personal bank account. If you were to be the victim of an online hack, that person would have complete access to your bank information, which also holds things like your personal information including address and other cards on the account.
  3. Strengthen your passwords: Most people tend to have one or two passwords that they use for all of their online accounts. While this is advised against, it’s even more so advised against if your passwords are weak. In order to have the most secure passwords for all of your accounts, they should all be different and be made through something like a password generator. Just don’t forget to have them written down in a journal so that you don’t forget any of them!

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