How Avoid Identity Theft While Online

In light of the recent announcement from online retailer Zappo’s that the personal information from more than 24 million customers was compromised, including names and addresses, we wanted to take a moment and share several tips that will help you stay safe shopping online.

Here are five ways that you can continue to enjoy the convenience of online shopping while taking steps to make sure your information stays safe:

1. Make sure that the site you’re sending personal information to is a “secure” site. You’ll know that you're on a secure site by looking at the web address. If it begins with “https” then you’ll know that you’re on a secure site that encrypts web traffic.

2. Protect your password. It sounds simple, but statistics show that many people use the same password on several different accounts. Whether you’re shopping online or using the internet banking feature through the credit union, choose several different passwords so that if one is compromised the information on your other accounts will be safe.

3. Do some quick research before buying from unfamiliar sites. Do an internet search featuring the name of the company you are about to send your information to and look for words like "scam," "complaint," or "review” to show up in the search results.

4. Be cautious of sharing personal information while using a Wi-Fi connection. For additional safety, make sure that your home network is WPA-encrypted. In fact, it’s best to avoid using public Wi-Fi when accessing sites that will ask for personal information, including email login information. For those with smartphones, 3G and 4G is a more secure way to access these websites than Wi-Fi.

5. Watch out for phishing scams. If your information has been hacked recently, you may receive an email from the hacker(s) looking for additional information. Never give out sensitive information requested by email. As a reminder, you will never receive an email from us at the credit union asking for you to send personal information by email. If you receive an email that looks suspicious, please contact us immediately.