Welcome back to our two part series covering all of the ways in which you can protect yourself and your personal information while shopping online. We covered some extremely important tips in the first blog, and have even more useful and safe things that you can do to avoid a hacker stealing your personal and bank account information.
- Only shop when you have a secure Wi-Fi connection available: Things like public Wi-Fi sources and free hotspots should be avoided at all costs while shopping online. The problem with these types of connections is that unlike private connections, such as the one you more than likely have in your home, don’t come with the same security features and precautions. Therefore, shopping online while using a public connection will make you more susceptible to hackers who will steal your information.
- Be careful when it comes to filling out optional information: When it comes to shopping online, you’ll more than likely need to put your address into the system to complete an order. But sites usually ask for other kinds of your personal information, such as your phone number. If this is the case, only fill out the information that is required to complete the purchase. In effect, the more information you provide, the greater chance a hacker has to access all of it.
- Only shop from devices that have a security software installed: Seeing that you can make online orders from virtually any device, you should only be making purchases on devices that have security software.
- Log out of sites after you’re finished with them: You should always be logging out of websites after you’ve finished making purchasing or browsing for goods online. Anything in your shopping cart will be automatically saved, so you won’t have to worry about losing anything you intend on purchasing in the future.
And there you have it! Just a few, easy ways that you can protect yourself and be a smarter, safer online shopper.
