Robert Siciliano shares four ways to stay safe during holiday shopping: check for HTTPS before entering payment info, keep antivirus software updated, avoid entering credit card data on public Wi-Fi, and monitor statements weekly for fraud within the 60-day dispute window.
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Well, while you're shopping, they are scamming. Identity theft spikes this time of year. How to avoid getting hacked next. Welcome back. Here's some interesting computer timeline trivia that you may not have known. I certainly didn't. Holiday season is also the hacking season. This is the time of year that you are most likely to get scammed on the internet. While you're shopping, hackers are scheming. Robert Siciliano is here now with some tips on how to avoid getting ripped off, which is about the least merry thing we can expect this time of season. Robert is an identity theft expert. He's got 4 tips for you. Robert, welcome to your world. Let's walk through it here. Number 1 is something a lot of people may not realize when they log in: make sure there is an S on the website name before the slashes.
Yeah, where it says HTTP, it needs to say HTTPS. That means it's a secure page. Now when you go and enter your usernames and passwords into a bank's website, you are gonna see that it's a secured page. Same thing with the retailer. You need to make sure that that is a secure page where you enter your credit card information, your name and your address and all that other stuff.
If they don't have it, then don't use it.
If it's not secured, I wouldn't enter my personal information in there.
Okay, now a lot of people when they buy new computers, they get a lot of spyware on their computer. They don't realize it. You want to have an updated virus and spyware protector. Are there any that you recommend?
Well, all the biggies, you know, Norton and McAfee and AVG. Another really good one that's free is Avast. That's a really good one. It's non-invasive. It runs in the background, takes good care of you. You have to make sure that your virus definitions are updated. Every time you go online, online, you want to make sure that your PC is secure. And that means that your virus definitions are updated automatically, that you don't have to do it manually. And it's also important that your Windows operating system— 90% of PCs are Windows— make sure your Windows operating system's critical security patches are updated automatically via your Service Pack 2 in your operating system.
And a lot of time-starved people out there working harder than ever, maybe traveling, they may be tempted to do some online shopping.— from that wireless hotspot at the internet, you're saying no, no, no, wait till you get home or you're back in the office.
It's not a good idea to be entering credit card information at a wireless internet cafe, at a coffee shop. You wanna wait till you're at a secured wired connection before you start plugging in that credit card information.
And finally, when you do plug in the credit card and when it's done and charged up, take a look at it, make sure everything is right.
Around the holiday season, you wanna check those statements at least every single week as you're using that— those credit cards at the retailers, online. You wanna check those credit card statements over the internet and refuting unauthorized charges within a 60-day period of time. If you don't do that within 2 billing cycles, you're gonna eat those charges that that identity theft made on your credit card.
4 good tips to protect yourself this holiday season from getting hacked. Robert Siciliano, ID theft expert. Robert, thank you very much. Have a happy holidays.
