Finally, the period or should I say season when we all have been waiting for, is here. A time of the year when prices of items online and in stores are slashed to the barest minimum.
Some items are reduced to as low as 90% discount price and what a good time to visit all the websites and E-commerce sites to grab these deals. A good time to even get almost free items, right? Well! In time or period like this as the price of items goes down, the rate of Cyber Crimes increases.
But we need to be careful not to be victims to cyber criminals and cyber frauds, hence, there are the five most important tips you need to know before you get on with your shopping and of course these should not only apply during this period but during every other season.
1. Ensure that the E-commerce website you are visiting has an https connection with a valid certificate.
This is probably very important for those shopping online. Ensure when you visit an E-commerce website like Amazon, Jumia, eBay, Konga, Alibaba etc. The website must have a locked padlock ? sign which means the connection is encrypted, hence, secure.
Also make sure you are entirely sure it is the real E-commerce site, before you put in any personal details. Incase you can’t remember the website of the E-commerce site you wish to visit. A simple google search should give you the right website, which should be the first search result.
2. Be Cautious of Online Offers
We all like free stuff right or at least nearly free, I mean who doesn’t. But I am sure you have heard there is nothing free even in Freetown, or however it is said. The bottom line is that, you might see so many offers online or social media offering a free deals or items and then always has one criterion which is to give certain details.
You might be requested to share a link to your contacts to get the free item or to fill in some personal details to grab the item. You need to resist the urge to follow through because most times this is the trick used for phishing, Social Engineering etc. Just note, nothing is actually free. You get that free iPhone 11 now; they get backdoor to monitor you in the future. So stop and think. This takes us to the third tip.
3. Think before You Click or Take Action
Black Friday deals are very tempting and so is clicking a link that offers free items or items slashed to the very minimum. But you need to be careful of shopping deals or discount coupons that look genuine in nature as these spread quite quickly during this period. A lot of phishing links will spread out and even there will be an increase in phishing mails, I mean what better time to get vulnerable people, what better time to hack individuals. If you get a mail in your inbox from an E-commerce site you never visited or from an individual or company claiming to be sharing free stuff and that all you need do is click the link to be directed to get the deal.
PLEASE, delete it immediately; don’t even try to see if it is true. The moment you click such link, you could get phished which could give malicious hackers access to your device or personal details. Even if it seems to be from a legit E-commerce site like Amazon or Jumia, just go to your browser and visit their website directly and check if such a deal is there. Don’t click on those links.
4. Do not Download or Install any E-commerce Application from Unknown Sources.
Statistics has it that over 50% of individuals lose their credit card details, Personally identifiable information (PII) and even get monitored by hackers during this season mainly because lack of awareness of this tip especially.
Never download any application from any place that is not the authorized app store. For example, Android users are to download applications from Google Play store, IOS users are to download from Apple store, etc. So if you need to get Amazon application or Jumia application or any E-commerce application basically. Only get it from your respective app store. You might overhear someone talking about an item that was slashed 50% its usual price, further stating that it is already limited to 10 more individuals or that the time remaining for grabs is less than 24hrs, but there is need to have the E-commerce app to get the offer. So the person offers to send the application via Xender, share it, airdrop, etc. and perhaps you have been dying to get that item, you feel this is the door of opportunity and you go ahead to collect the application from the individual.
You could be installing a Trojan which might look like the exact application and what this Trojan is or what you might know as virus or malware will do is that, it steals your details like credit card details ,etc. and sends it to a remote location.
Don’t collect any app where you might be required to put in personal or important details. Even if you must grab such opportunity. Don’t be in a haste, go to your Playstore or Appstore and directly download the application.
5. Do not do Online Shopping with Free or Public WiFi
Avoid connecting to public WiFi and then accessing your bank mobile application or even visiting websites to shop using public WiFi. I am sure you don’t know what goes on in the background, as there are many negative effects to connecting to public WiFi. Well! Individuals, fraudsters or malicious hackers could connect to that same network and monitor everything you are doing, intercept traffic, steals important details, etc. I don’t want to go further explaining how this is done, but you must desist from connecting to public or free WiFi.
So there you have it, with these few tips in mind, you are sure to enjoy your online shopping with ease. There are other interesting tips and stories we would share in the next article. Stay tuned and stay safe.