There was a time when people were doubtful about buying stuff online. We remember people asking whether they would receive the products on time. People were also concerned about quality of the product, the possibility of exchange or the refund stuff. Now, after all these years of digitalization, Online Shopping is considered equal to normal shopping.
We may also say that Online Shopping enjoys some privileges in the metro areas all over the world. But, along with the popularity, there is this problem of Security as well. If it was the deliverability that was questioned earlier, people are now concerned about Online Security nowadays. But, although absolute security is a myth, we can improve the protective layer through a bunch of methods. In this article, we can give you five tips for Safe and Secure Online Shopping. If you follow these ways on a regular basis, you can be confident about purchasing products and services online.
Almost Always, rely on Trusted Brands
Every single day, we see the rise of newer online shopping stores. All of these stores are offering something cool such as innovative products or better delivery. More often than not, the quality of such stores are not good enough. And you can’t rely upon the stores for on-time delivery and safer payment methods. Also, quality of the products can also be somewhat compromised in the end. Therefore, it makes enough sense to rely upon trusted sources to purchase products. Amazon, as you know, is one of the trusted and widely-used Online Store. So, we repeat, don’t go into the new-comer stores if the same products are available at Amazon or so. You may get some discount, but quality may also be compromised.
Confirm The Payment Gateways You’re Using
Sometimes, hackers using bogus sites and pages for fooling you and thus stealing account info. In most cases, fake kinds of Payment Gateways are used to fool customers. So, for having the best level of Online Security, you should be conscious about the Payment Gateways you are using. First of all, you need to make sure that the connection is Secure and Private. To do that, you can check whether it’s HTTPS. When you are browsing a website with HTTPS connection, it means that no third-party access will be enabled. This way, you can be sure of the fact that no evil hand is interfering with your online shopping activity. Also, you can check whether the Payment Gateway is using trusted forms of payment. At the basic, it should support Credit Cards, Debit Cards, PayPal and Net Banking.
Use an Ad-Blocker
You may wonder what an Ad-Blocker software can do about Online Shopping Security. In case if you did not know, ads are widely used to spread malware and install spyware on devices. So, if you manage to block such pop-ups, you are avoiding a big risk of being threatened by malware and spyware. If you are someone who purchases products with other tabs open in browser, you should seriously consider using an Ad-Blocker utility. This way, while you are processing the payment, you can get rid of those annoying advertisements as well as this issue of security breach. Indeed, this can have a much serious impact on the Online Shopping Security of yours. Also, you should think twice before you click on those damn-attractive offers out there. In a single click, you may compromise the entire security setup of your browser.
Never Shop through a Public Wi-Fi Connection
Are you desperate enough to do shopping even while using a Public Wi-Fi connection? If you are doing that, you actually are compromising the greatest layer of security out there. It’s a proven fact that Public Wi-Fi connections are vulnerable when compared to closed connections and private connections. Anyone else in the Wi-Fi network can have access to your devices — if they know how to do that. And, pretty much all the time, hackers are very proficient when it comes to public Wi-Fi vulnerabilities. So, it’s not a problem if you are browsing products while in a Public Wi-Fi. However, you should never ever try to process payment over a public Wi-Fi connection. It’s like killing off all your efforts to stay secure and safe.
Better Passwords and Preference to Official Apps
Both these steps are easier to do. However, their effect can be amazing if we consider the wholesome result. For instance, it is proven that hard passwords cannot be cracked. It’s not like you are going to use your name or address as your secure password, you know. Depending on how much you can remember, you can try including special characters as well as the combination of uppercase and lowercase characters in your Online Shopping passwords. These will have a huge impact if your account is being compromised by hackers. Also, when compared to the official websites, you should try checking out the official apps for smartphones. It’s pretty clear that apps are secure, isolated and user-friendly. And, apps these days come with integrated payment services that make things easier. So, you have enough reasons to stick onto the official shopping apps.
The Bottom Line
The five steps we have seen above have been used by people and found to be effective. For instance, you can find the fact that Ad-Blocker can do a lot of good things for your security. It may not be possible to use all those steps, but you should definitely give a try to some of those. After all, none of those steps are tough to complete. And, what’s the problem with taking a bit effort for enhanced security?
