How Do You Know a Website is Secure During the Holiday Season?

With the holiday season coming up, many will be doing their shopping online. Online shopping means that personal information, such as phone numbers, home addresses and credit card information will be flying around the internet. For cyber criminals, this personal data translates to dollars, as they are gearing up for the heavy traffic and increased online sales in the upcoming months We will answer the question, “How do you know a website is secure during the holiday season?”

How Do You Know a Website is Secure During the Holiday Season?

Before giving any of your personal information to a website, you want to make sure it is secure. We have put together a few tips on how to tell if a website is secure below.

Make Sure the Website Uses HTTPS

The HTTPS is fundamental to the security of any website. You can look at the URL of the website to see if it has the HTTPs in front of it. This means the website is secured using an SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer). The SSL certificate verifies that the website user’s data gets sent securely.

This is easily identifiable when using Google, as there will be a red “Not Secure” message next to the URL of the website.

This is an example of what the SSL “lock” looks like on the most popular browsers:

Check the Domain (URL)

Often times, cyber criminals will create websites that mimic existing websites to trick people into purchasing something on or logging into their phishing site. These websites often look identical to the existing website. However, the domain (URL) at the top might have a slight misspelling.

For example, the cyber attacker could purchase the domain “amaz0n.com” to look exactly like the amazon.com website. They buy a DV certificate for their website to trick users (by using phishing emails or other methods) to purchase items or log into their accounts on the mimic phishing site.

Look for Signs that the Company is Real

The following are a few signs that you can look for to help determine if a company is real or not:

• Physical address and phone number. Companies that list a physical address and phone number have a higher chance that they are a real business. Reputable companies will list this information for customers to contact them.
• Return policy. Reputable websites will list their return policy as well as their shipping policy. You probably won’t to avoid purchasing from them if you can’t find these policies on their website.
• Prices are too low to believe. While finding a bargain can be great, beware of any websites that offer products or services for prices that are far lower than they should be. This could result in knock off merchandise, stolen goods or not receiving anything at all.
• Privacy statement. Websites that are reputable will tell you how they protect your information, as well as if they give your information to third parties.

Shopping online during the holiday season is extremely convenient. However, falling victim to an online scam or data theft would ruin anyone’s holidays. We hope this helps answer your question, “How do you know a website is secure during the holiday season?”

If you are a company looking to make your website secure this holiday season, contact us at Centennial Arts with the link below for more information on our website security services.