How to secure your information while spending online

The digital transformation has touched every aspect of our life. Our social activities, our learning process, our business transactions have all been subject to major digitization in recent years.

Perhaps one of the main tasks we took online is commerce. Almost everyone is buying or performing some kind of payment and transaction through the internet. Lockdowns due to COVID pandemic accelerated this trend in an unprecedented manner throughout the world. People drastically changed their shopping behavior and resorted to online buying as a response to isolation and uncertainty.  

It goes without saying that online and mobile payments make our lives much easier. They are convenient, fast, and mostly managed from the comfort of our home. However, this convenience comes with a big risk: SECURITY.
 
Making your information available online without taking the necessary steps to secure it will put it at risk of being stolen, hacked and manipulated. That is why it is very important to understand the fundamentals of keeping your personal and financial information used online secure and safe.

Follow these steps to keep your account away from hackers and spams:

HTTPS not HTTP

HTTP is Hypertext Transfer Protocol that governs how information is transmitted on the World Wide Web. When you want to execute any online payment or fill information about your identity, always make sure the website URL string you are accessing starts with https:// (notice the “s” in front of http, which stands for Secure). The added “s” means the website is encrypted.  Without HTTPS, any data passed is insecure and sensitive information can be stolen or hacked.

Passwords are your Armor

We all tend to use easy and memorable passwords. We oftentimes choose our names, addresses, and dates of birth or even just a simple number combination. This is an open-door invitation to hackers especially if the same password is used for multiple accounts. You would be making their life very easy this way. 

So make sure you update your password regularly. Do not keep the same password for more than 90 days. Always use long complicated passwords (a combination of numbers, upper and lowercase letters, special characters) to avoid being a victim.

Consider two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of protection used to ensure the security of online accounts beyond just a password. We know it might look like a hassle and another password or key to keep record of, but adding this extra layer of protection (such as being asked a security question that only you know the answer to or sending a code via email or text message to yourself as additional verification) will increase the security of your accounts. Even if your password is stolen or your phone is lost, the chances of someone else having your second-factor information would be highly unlikely.

Beware of Public WI-FI 

In airports, parks, malls and restaurants we all tend to save our mobile data packages and binge on free public Wi-Fi. Well, don’t. As easy as it is for you to access these networks, so it is for hackers. Cyber criminals await on the same connection to intercept any information you send or receive. They can access your data and steal your credit card number or other important personal input. Avoid public WI-FI and if you are bound to use internet tap on your mobile data or ask a friend for hotspot instead.

Be careful on Social media

Whatever you share on Facebook or any other social platform is not yours anymore. It is out in public domain and anyone with good knowledge can access this information and use it. If you have weak privacy settings, you could actually make your identity vulnerable to online threats. Therefore, try not to put too personal information in the public space. If you must, change your privacy policy to “friends only” so that only people you know can see such data.
 
Digitization has indeed modernized our lives and became an integral part of it. We must embrace this change but always be aware of each activity we are doing and always keep track of the most frequent behavior we perform online as they become robotic and we might lose our defenses. Securing our data is the main challenge going onward and protecting ourselves from cyber criminals is a duty.