HOW TO FIND OUT A SAFE ONLINE STORE?

Online trading is gaining momentum more and more, gradually approaching the peak of its popularity. According to Akit, the total turnover of online stores in the past 2014 amounted to 713 billion dollars, which is 31% more than in the previous year.

When we shop online, our personal information – phone numbers, home addresses, credit card information – is transmitted over the Internet. All of this personal information means potential profits for cyber criminals, who are activated, for example, during the holiday seasons, preparing in advance for increased traffic and online activity. Therefore, before you start shopping online, it is important to understand whether it is safe to buy from the site of your choice. How do you define a safe online store?

Well the most straightforward way to find if an online shopping site is safe is by checking if they provide a Fulfillment Expert to their consumers. 

PERSONAL DATA SECURITY

Online stores and large traditional supermarket chains are at double risk from data theft and attacks on electronic transactions. However, online shoppers risk falling victim to phishing (data extraction), fake websites, malefactor-in-the-middle attacks, spam, phishing emails, pop-ups, socio-technical attacks, or being involved in fraudulent charities. From the moment the store owner receives your personal information, he has full control over its safety. Therefore, you need to choose with care in whose hands you give your personal data. But how do you know who you can trust and who can’t? How can you tell if a website is genuine or fake and can you provide it with your personal information?

SAFE ONLINE STORE: DISTINCTIVE FEATURES

Before providing a website with your personal data, you need to make sure that it is legitimate. Below are simple tips to help you determine your website’s trustworthiness level.

SSL CERTIFICATE

If the URL-address of the web site begins with https instead of http , it means that the website is secured using SSL certificate ( s denotes the secure , from the English. Safe ). Having an SSL certificate means that all of your data is encrypted .to the server. Besides validation, SSL can be in the form of a single domain, multi domain, wildcard SSL certificate, code signing certificate. All these certs aim to offer strong encryption and data integrity. No third person is allowed to sniff ongoing information. as it travels from your browser to the web server.

To obtain an SSL certificate, companies need to be verified by a certification authority. There are several levels of verification, and some types of verification are difficult to pass. During the lowest level validation –  Domain Validation or Domain Validation (DV) – only your domain ownership is verified, your legitimacy is not verified. That is, if you purchased the amaz0n.com domain name and requested a certificate for it, you will be issued it because you are the legal owner of that domain.

The highest level of test –  Extended Validation or the Extended Validation (the EV) – guarantees the highest level of security and is the most expensive method. In extended verification, the party requesting the certificate must go through identity verification, as well as prove the legality of their activities. You can find out whether a website has passed this verification and received an EV SSL certificate by looking at the address bar of your browser. If the website has an EV certificate, a padlock icon will be shown in the browser address bar, and it should be highlighted in green.