Protecting yourself from Online Credit Card frauds – Part 1

In April this year, UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency (Soca) with help from the FBI and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) arrested two men charged with purchasing stolen credit/debit card numbers and other financial information from websites selling such info and shut down 36 web domains involved in this business. Victims whose details had been compromised were located all over the world from the US, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Australia. Such is the nature of online credit card frauds that someone sitting in country A can pawn info of a person from country B over a website to someone in country C! In the light of rampant larceny, SupportMart Fraud Awareness campaign brings you tips over two posts to avoid such a scam, proactively and intelligently.

As always, we encourage you to share this post freely so others may also benefit from it. So, let’s get started.

 

1. Restrict online transactions to your PC

This might sound a no-brainer, but quite surprisingly, people often choose to ignore it. So, here goes: DO NOT perform online money transfers or purchases sitting on a public computer (there is no guarantee that system isn’t already infested with malware such as keyloggers or the Internet kiosk is not part of some big scam), unless there really is no other way and you’ve got to do this urgently.

In case you have to, wipe out all info after completing the process, including cookies, browser history, stored usernames, EVERYTHING!

 

2. Install a trusted Antivirus/Antimalware suite in your PC

Today’s antivirus suites come bundled with Internet/Browser Security features which prevent you from visiting a fraudulent site if it matches their database of malicious websites. The downside is this might also block some legit sites, for which, you’ll have to disable the antivirus temporarily. For info on which antivirus software might be good for you, read Antivirus reviews from SupportMart.

Antimalware scans can also detect and remove spyware such as keyloggers, which might’ve got in from a malicious website you visited without meaning to.

 

3. Use Internet Explorer for added security

Yes, we get it, you swear by sleek and smooth browsing of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, but when it comes to security, IE beats it all. Microsoft Internet Explorer employs 128-bit encryption, which means an intermediary would have a very tough time trying to decrypt and steal your data.

 

4. Check for SSL certification of merchant website

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a security protocol implemented by websites to encrypt data transferred to them over the Internet. You will be able to check the status of SSL certification of a merchant website in your browser, somewhere near the address bar. This doesn’t however mean websites without SSL security are frauds, it only means someone in between could intercept and steal data you send to the website.

 

5. Be wary of phishing sites

Do not open or click on links in emails that appear to be from your bank or a financial service provider. Such links might open up phishing websites where you’d be asked to enter personal financial information for seemingly legitimate reasons as, you need to change your password for added security, etc. This is only a ploy to get info from you. Banks do not ask for your passwords EVER and certainly don’t ask you to provide them by e-mail. If anything, visit the bank website directly and not from the link in the e-mail. For more info on such sites, contact SupportMart’s anti-fraud team.

These are five out of ten tips we have for you. You can continue to the next post for the remaining.