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With broadband and ADSL becoming so prevalent, online shopping has become an everyday reality for many people. Today people can purchase just about anything online from nearly anywhere in the world. But with all these shopping opportunities broadband provides come the opportunities for thieves to get their grubby little hands on your money. That is why it is important to keep your online transactions secure.

 

Keeping your online transactions secure is not as hard as it seems as most websites do most of the work for you. The rest is just vigilance and common sense on the side of the broadband user. Before you even think about entering any credit card details into a website make sure that you are connecting through a secure site. The address of a secure site will be prefixed with ‘https’ instead of the usual ‘http’. This means that the company owning the website has gone to extra lengths to keep any entered information secure. A small lock or unbroken key on the bottom right-hand corner of the browser is another indication of a secure site.

 

Even when you go through a secure site there is no guarantee that your online transaction will remain secure. To ensure the maximum security it is recommended that you always use your own computer and broadband connection any time you want to make an online transaction. Public computers may have software installed on them that can track the sites you have visited and log the keys that you typed. Never sign into a bank account or make a credit card payment from a public computer or broadband connection if you can help it.

 

Also never perform any online transactions or enter private banking information when clicking through a link in email. Duplicate websites are created by malicious individuals to look exactly like the site you expect to see and then steal the information that you have entered into the system. Always go directly to your bank or shopping website via the address bar in your browser to make sure that you end up where you want to be.

 

To further ensure the security of your online transactions make sure that all anti-virus programmes on your computer are up to date and that you have trustworthy anti-spyware software installed on your system. Only download security updates from trusted sites – that is either through a programme’s auto-update feature or directly from the producer’s websites. Thieves are always looking for ways to get their keyloggers and hacking tools onto your computer.

 

While it goes it without saying that you should keep the login details for online transactions in a safe place you should never keep them on the computer. A computer connected 24/7 to the Internet via a broadband connection can be accessed from outside and the details discovered. Keep online transaction details secure in a place where electronic thieves cannot get to it.

 

Every day people all over the world perform thousands if not millions of online transactions. Keeping these online transactions secure is as much the website owner’s responsibility as it is the user. Always be vigilant and keep your private details secure.

 

 

 

 

 

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