Back To School Online Safety Tips

By Gennifer Biggs, security, storage, and managed services editor

As I talked with security vendor AppRiver about an upcoming story, they mentioned some online shopping safety tips that you can easily pass along to your customers as a value-add. We all know how popular online shopping is, and the back to school rush is on.

• Stick with known, trusted stores — Before buying items from a new company, evaluate the website and consider these issues: the professionalism and user-friendliness of the site; whether the company lists a telephone number, street address, and/or e-mail contact information.
• Create strong passwords — Choose passwords that are complex and utilize a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. Do not make the selection that allows machines to "remember" passwords as hackers could later gain access to them. You should also refrain from using the same password for multiple programs.
• Check privacy policies — Make sure the retailer explicitly states that it will not share private information without your consent.
• Before entering sensitive information into a website, look for the security padlock symbol. The padlock is one way of checking that a website is safe and indicates that the information you submit is secure. Double click the icon. It will display the certificate information for the page you are viewing to guarantee that you are on a safe, secure website. Make sure the certificate is current and issued to the same company you are visiting. Don't be fooled by a padlock that appears on the web page itself because it is possible for a cybercriminal to copy the image. Double check that the padlock is in the window frame of the browser itself.
• After validating the padlock, you can also check the text before the website name in the address bar. The "https" is another indication that the page you are viewing is secure.
• Pay attention to the web address. Monitor the address; if you click on a link, look to make sure that the address stayed the same. If it changed, it has taken you to a fraudulent web address where cybercriminals can monitor and access your information.
• With recent browsers (such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3 and Opera 9.5), you may see the address bar turn green when visiting a trusted website.