Safe Online Shopping: How to Protect Yourself from Fraud
Before we get to the main point, we want to emphasize that this article is useful for both website owners and online shoppers. The former will learn how to protect customers' personal payment information, while the latter will understand which sites can and cannot be trusted with their card details.
Online shopping is very common these days, especially since the pandemic hit. We've discovered the benefits and advantages of online shopping. This has given us the opportunity to get the products and services we want without restrictions, even during strict quarantine. However, scammers haven't been idle either, coming up with new schemes to intercept the personal data of people making purchases online.
To understand whether a site is secure, pay attention to the link in the address bar.If it starts like this: http://We do NOT recommend making online payments on such a website.If the link starts like this: https://, you can rest assured that when making an online payment, fraudsters will not be able to intercept your bank card details, because all information is encrypted.
Little "s", what does it solve?
The small letter "s" tells us that the owner of the website where you are about to make a purchase has taken care of their customers and installed an SSL certificate that protects every buyer.
"Wait, I don't understand anything. How can a lowercase Latin letter protect my money?" the user will ask.
In a browser, the symbols http:// or https:// may appear before website addresses. Both abbreviations mean the same thing: Internet Protocol (IP).
** Protocol—This is a set of rules for exchanging data between the browser and the server.
HTTP is a standard protocol that transmits user-entered information in cleartext. The browser transmits it as the user entered it. Naturally, with such transmission, the card number and security code can be intercepted by fraudsters and used for profit.
HTTPS is a secure version of the HTTP protocol. It is activated by installing an SSL certificate, which encrypts information and protects data from fraudsters.
How does an SSL certificate protect personal data?
Let's imagine you've planned to purchase electronics online because you don't want to go to the store. To pay for your order, you need to enter your bank card details. Your browser transmits this information to the server. If online scammers intercept the message containing this information, they'll see your sensitive card details and be able to make online purchases at your expense. But we're confident this won't happen to you, because you always check the beginning of the link to the website where you plan to place your order.
Remember! HTTPS:// is safe, HTTP:// is dangerous.
Even if scammers intercept a message sent from a site with an SSL certificate, they won't be able to decrypt it. It will be a random string of characters, not specific payment information.
We recommend that all online sellers protect their customers from online fraud by installingSSL certificates.
And since Google Chrome makes HTTPS the default protocol for users on April 13, 2021, installing it becomes essential for all website owners who don't want to lose their customers.
