As the holiday season is coming to a close, it’s back to school time again. It’s time to buy books, pick up supplies, buy new clothes, etc. It’s so crazy and so expensive!
And despite we all know that we have the option to buy all these items online at the same price or at a lower price than at a physical store, many of us are still reluctant to do so for fear of being duped on the Internet. Even thought it is true that online shopping is sometimes subject to fraud, it is just enough to follow some basic tips to protect yourself when doing your shopping online.
What to bear in mind when shopping online?
- Only visit trusted sites. Look for pages with a professional appearance, pages from a well-known brand, sites displaying a customer service telephone number… It is very important to know who you are buying from.
- Be wary of prize-drawings and ridiculously good offers. Read the conditions of each promotion carefully to avoid nasty surprises.
- Pay for your purchases securely. You don’t necessarily need to always pay by credit card. There are different means of payment and, whenever possible, we recommend that you use cash on delivery to avoid surprises. If this is not possible and you choose to pay by credit card, remember that you will have to provide more information, and therefore you must be sure that the transaction will be completely safe.
- Make sure you are on a HTTPS page:
Web addresses normally start with ‘HTTP’.
However, the pages you make online payments on must be more secure and they should start with ‘HTTPS’. - Keep an antivirus installed and update it frequently. This is your barrier against spam and phishing. Enter your passwords safely using a virtual keyboard.Note: if you are not sure about something during the installation or update processes, don’t leave it for later. Look for the appropriate solution in the support forums available to you for any queries you might have.
- It is advisable to have a bank account with a credit card associated with it for making online purchases. This account will contain just the money you need for this purpose, making monitoring easier.
- Keep product warranties in a safe place. Besides handling the electronic aspect of online purchases, e-businesses must offer straightforward warranties on products bought. The Web page must contain the following information:
- Means of payment
- Delivery terms
- Product warranties
- Returns
- If you find out that the product you receive is faulty, is different from the one you purchased or the delivery terms are not fulfilled, file a complaint through the company’s Customer Service Dept.
- Finally, if you don’t receive any answers and you suspect there could be some kind of fraud, report it as soon as possible.
Follow these simple tips and you won’t have any surprises when it comes to doing your shopping on the Internet.
Panda Security specializes in the development of endpoint security products and is part of the WatchGuard portfolio of IT security solutions. Initially focused on the development of antivirus software, the company has since expanded its line of business to advanced cyber-security services with technology for preventing cyber-crime.
2 comments
As an addition to this article: I recommend first and foremost, do not log on to your computer with administrator privileges. I believe there are two main factors that favor an infection: code-execution in the context of an administrator and the exploitation of vulnerabilities.
If I am logged on as administrator, the malware also works with full access to the system. On the other hand logging on with an simple user-account (read: non-administrative privileges) will result in malware not being able to manipulate system settings. Of course malware authors will still try to do so, but they will need to find an exploitable software vulnerability to actually do it.
Therefore one should also keep its operating system and the installed software up to date as possible. Also, I recommend to reduce potential attack surface by removing software that isnt really needed. Who wants to secure its system, should radically reduce code. This can be achieved by software uninstalling software.
Hi!
Thanks a lot for your comment! I will include these recomendations in my next article.
eKnowledge Department
Blanca