To begin with, it’s never completely secure to do anything online. It is a fair and general rule to always assume whatever is going out over the ether is subject to compromise.
The sad truth is that the more popular and easy it is to make payments online, the more those actions will become a target for thieves. Still, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself and feel some relative comfort making purchases online.
The worst and easiest mistake to make when making online payments is to use a debit card tied to a checking account. All that is needed for online fraud is right there for the taking during your transaction. Once your debit card information is compromised, it’s a simple step to drain your checking account, and any other account you might have as overdraft protection.
While many credit unions have policies protecting their members from online fraud, getting your money back might be complicated and time consuming. If you are absolutely in a hurry, it is marginally safer to use a credit card for online purchases. This is only slightly better because at least if money is taken it’s not directly out of checking and you have a little more time to deal with the problem.
The best step is to get a gift card for the amount of the purchase you are making and us that. Combing that with the Firefox add-on Request Policy, and you have made your online purchase about as secure as humanly possible. The add-on is available through the browsers menu and is a very effective method for making transactions more secure.
Basically once it is installed you will want to leave it off until the time comes to make the payment with your gift card. At that point turn it on to Full Address mode and you’ve done what you can.
