How can I be safer when shopping on the Internet?

The major shopping season of the year has arrived and more and more people are purchasing gifts online.

Here are a couple of suggestions to make online shopping more secure:

First make sure the site is secure. See if it says https:// in front of the name or has a lock showing on the address line that is in the locked position.

The “s” after “http” says it is a secure site. If it says “http” instead it is not secure and the information is not encrypted and anyone with ability to listen to web traffic can steal the information.

Also make sure the site is really part of the organization you are buying from or giving to.

Look at the address of the page. See what comes right after https:// or what it starts with. I don’t sell things on my site, but for the purpose of an example if you were buying from me then immediately after https:// or just by itself you should see a word (often www), then a period, then the name of the site (in my case dwightwatt.com).

Then you may see some more stuff after a slash. The stuff after slash is pages in the site and can sound like a real site. So someone wanting to steal money from my customers may create a site that says http:// steal.com/dwightwatt. com/shop and if you were just looking at the whole thing you would think you were at my site since it says dwightwatt.com but really you were at a crook’s site steal.com.

Second, do your shopping and giving on secure networks. Using a wired network connection is best.

If you are using WiFi then it needs to be a secure connection (requires you to enter a password to the network).

Don’t use a wide open network like restaurants and motels have for public Wi-Fi to shop on as people can steal what you send in the air signal. Those networks are great for browsing the Internet and doing nonsecure items, but not for shopping or using personal information.

Have a good holiday season!

Send your questions to Dwight Watt at dwight@ dwightwatt.com. He teaches at a technical college in northwest Georgia and does consulting work for businesses and individuals. His website is dwightwatt. com.