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01/08/2021 By Jason Bean Leave a Comment

5 Smart Tips for Safe Online Shopping in 2021

Online shopping is fast becoming the new norm. Thanks to the freedom, convenience, and ease it offers, you're probably thinking of doing it yourself. However, one of the biggest concerns most online shoppers have is security. How secure are your financial details on shopping websites?

Here are a few tips that can help you stay safe in 2021.

1. Start with trusted sites

There are millions of online retail sites today. Most of them are legitimate, but some contain links to spam and malicious content. You, therefore, need to be extra careful when searching for a shopping website.

First, start with the popular and well-known sites like Amazon.com or Ebay.com. You're less likely to be scammed on these sites since you've probably used them before. You can also try your favorite retail stores if they're online, but ensure you know the right web addresses.

Be on the lookout for the popular domain misspelling scams, for instance, a hacker may use Amazon.net instead of Amazon.com. These tricks have been successful for years because they're not conspicuous at first glance.

2. Look for HTTPS URL and a padlock icon

Before sharing your credit or debit card information on an online shopping site, here are the two rules you should follow: Ensure the site’s URL starts with HTTPS, and confirm that a locked padlock icon appears slightly left of the URL bar.

The (S) in HTTPS stands for secure and shows that the shopping website has integrated a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. The locked padlock (sometimes green) indicates that your connection to the website is secure.

Avoid sharing any information on sites with just HTTP and without the padlock.

3. Don’t shop over public wi-fi

We’ve heard stories about public wi-fi hotspots and cybercriminals countless times. By now, you should know that while shopping using public Wi-Fi seems convenient, it leaves your data in the hands of hackers.

Personal information such as your credit card details, bank details, phone number, and your emails are but a few of the data a hacker can manipulate from the vulnerabilities of unsecure Wi-Fi.

So, instead of exposing yourself to that much risk, always use your data to complete your online shopping transactions. And if you really have to use Wi-Fi, a simple VPN download will go a long way to improving your security.

But still, if you can avoid insecure public Wi-Fi, do yourself a favor and do it.

4. Keep your software up-to-date

Updating your software is the #1 online security measure every security expert recommends. Whether you're shopping on your phone, laptop, or tablet, ensure that the operating system is up-to-date with the latest updates.

Updating your software fixes any vulnerabilities that cybercriminals may exploit to send malware into your system.

5. Avoid ‘too good to be true’ offers

In any e-commerce store, if any product pricing appears to be too good to be true, it probably is. Don't trust any seller offering such an offer. This is usually a trap by some sellers to collect your credit card information among other data, so they can sell it. In other cases, the product might be of very poor quality.

Conclusion

When shopping online, getting scammed isn’t just a far-fetched idea. It happens to millions of people every day. You should therefore be careful with how you go about the process if you want to avoid it. With the tips above, we’re confident that you’ll always be one step ahead of the criminals.

Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

12/23/2020 By Jason Bean Leave a Comment

Setting a Budget at Christmastime

There are two types of people in the world: Savers and spenders. At Christmas, it is much easier to be a spender than a saver, and it can wreak havoc on your wallet if you are not careful. It is important that you set a reasonable Christmas budget that the whole family can stick to. In this way, you will be able to get gifts for everyone on your list without having to worry about a lasting financial strain from the holidays.

Consider Normal Monthly Expenses

Just because it is the holiday season does not mean that you will not have to pay things like rent, utilities or car notes. It is important to factor in your normal expenses when determining what your Christmas budget will be. Make a list of all the expenses that you incur throughout the month, including your groceries and any extras like vaping supplies from Smokingthings. In this way, you will be able to see what is left over to spend on your gifts.

Make a List of Gift Recipients

Your budget will be stretched a lot more if you buy a gift for every single person that you know. You should make a list of everyone that it is essential for you to buy for. Then, if there is a lot of money left over in the budget, you can add more people to that list. If you are having trouble stretching your budget across several people, you might talk to your family about drawing names for gifts this year. In this way, everyone gets one larger present instead of several small ones.

Do Not Forget About Yourself

During the holidays, it can be easy to get wrapped up in buying for everyone else, and you can easily forget about yourself. However, you should set aside some money to get something special for yourself. It does not have to be anything large; just something to cheer you up and make you feel indulged. It is not selfish to want to get something for yourself at Christmas; after all, you have worked hard to be able to spend your money.

There are plenty of things to get excited about during the holiday season, and gift giving is one of the main ones. Consider how you will budget for your gifts this year while still giving gifts that are thoughtful and meaningful. When you follow these tips, you can have a great Christmas that will not break the bank.

01/29/2020 By Jason Bean 3 Comments

Can You See the Red Flags in This PayPal Account Phishing Attempt

PayPal Phishing Email Screenshot — Click Image to Enlarge

It still surprises me the number of people that get taken by these types of spam emails, normally leading to malware installs, identity theft or other annoyances of life in the digital age. For me I hardly ever click on links in an email if I'm not expecting the email from someone already in advance. Even then I take a few quick seconds to scan the email and look for anything that seems fishy to me. Or should that be "phishy"?

Can you spot all the issues with this email I recently received:

Misspelled the name of the company in the sender's name "Paypl service"
Spammy looking email address! - this isn't always a reliable tell-tell sign to watch out, but more often than not it should give you a heads up. In this case the account name (prior to the @ symbol) seems odd, and in this case the server the email is coming from is also pretty sketchy looking
Not always a red-flag (sadly) but there's numerous instances of letters being capitalized in the body of the message that shouldn't be if following standard grammatical rules
Although not an alert all by itself, anything I see a link that's formatted as a button, I know there's opportunity for the things to be hidden, in this case we look at where the link is going to go by hovering over the link with our mouse in the browser and our browser telling us where in the bottom-left-hand corner
Look at that link! //cat.jp.as.criteo.com/ now I'm going to stop right there because it's interesting to note that "Criteo" is a legitimate advertising platform, so these spammers appear to be either absolutely tracking their efforts of success or potentially spoofing this further to obscure their ploy. Taking a further look at the remaining part of the URL you'll see another website address being include after the "?r=" query string. That leads me to believe that link is being redirected even further to help cover their tracks

Here's another quick Public Service Announcement for you, don't just go clicking on links in emails even when they look like they're coming from legitimate sources.

In this case, if you did indeed have a PayPal account and you were worried about it. Go to their website directly by opening your browser and typing in the URL of the company directly and visiting the site that way. Login to your account and see if there are any warnings or alerts posted there. If the company has a chat feature for support, send them a chat and have them verify if there are or are not any issues with your account that need to be addressed.