Love Shopping! Online Shopping Is Convenient! How Can You Be A Safe Shopper?

Online shopping puts you and your organization at risk for identity theft, hacking, and financial loss

By EUNIZ BROWN

Shopping can be fun! Online shopping is convenient and great for saving time, trips to the store, and getting items online can be dropped at your door the same day now. You can purchase items through your mobile device or laptop anytime and anywhere you have internet connection.

But don’t be unaware of the threats associated with online shopping. These threats pose many risks to not only your personal information, but your organization’s assets (e.g. email address, shipping address, phone number, credit card).

Perhaps you are shopping online for personal reasons or using your organization’s accounts to make company purchases, best protective practices for shopping online will help you and your organization keep sensitive information and assets private.

Online shopping, though handy, puts you and your organization at risk for identity theft, hacking, and financial loss

How Can I Protect Myself and My Organization?

Here are some tips and best practices the next time you go to the online checkout:

Research retailers to ensure legitimacy
Create a unique and strong passphrase for online accounts
Use two-factor authentication where possible
Use a safe form of payment (e.g. credit cards) from major financial institutions that guarantee reimbursement for fraudulent transactions
Check your credit card statements frequently for any unexpected purchases
Use a virtual credit card number or a separate card with a low spending limit if you are unfamiliar with the website (i.e. banks offer temporary cards with set amounts to limit the damage that can take place on your real card)
Read the website’s privacy policies, return policies, and other information
Limit the amount of personal information you use on the website (e.g. do not give your social insurance number)
Use websites that start with HTTPS, as they use encryption policies to protect your information
Use websites that display a green lock (i.e. encrypts website traffic) in the address bar