This holiday season, some of us may do some of our shopping online. Before doing our shopping online, we should follow basic security steps to guard our personal and financial information from fraud and identity theft.
Here are some tips for safe holiday shopping online:
- Make sure your security software is up-to-date. Update your anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall software to minimize the risk of falling victim to malicious threats like trojans or computer viruses that could attempt to steal your personal information or provide hackers access to your computer.
- Don't conduct any online shopping on public computers such as those found at cybercafes, public libraries, etc. The public computer you use, could have spyware or other malicious software installed that in turn could compromise your personal and financial information.
- When in doubt about a retailer, check them out. Do an online search on a retailer and read comments from other customers. Contact the Better Business Bureau and find any additional information they may have on the company.
- Monitor your credit. Make it a habit to monitor your credit regularly with the major credit bureaus.
Here are some additional resources for safe online shopping this holiday season.
- The National Cyber Security Alliance
http://www.staysafeonline.info/basics/shoppingTips.html - Yahoo! Shopping
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/info/consumertips.html
Jaime G. Chanaga, CISSP, CISA is founder and CEO of The CSO Board, a management consulting firm dedicated to helping leaders and organizations solve critical strategic issues make lasting substantial improvements in their performance. He is also an Editorial Advisory Board Member for 
