After roaming around looking for some pre-Black Friday deals, i was pretty overwhelmed by the hype and sheer volume of ads and deals bombarding me. Clearly Black Friday is now increasingly a big deal outside of the US. Check out the infographic at the end of this post that highlights the trend and growth of Black Friday around the world.
Anyway, it led me to think about cyber-security and the need for a lot of us to be even more vigilant about the purchases we’re making over the next few days and in the run up to Christmas. So, following are 7 simple tips to keep in mind before you click that Black Friday deal:
- Be security aware
- Ensure that you’re buying from a legitimate online store – is the url correct?
- Read some online reviews of the store before you purchase anything
- Don’t use public wifi, use a secure network connection
- Use complex passwords with letter (upper and lower case), numbers and symbols, and don’t share the same password across multiple websites
- Only purchase from websites that start with https://
- Use a credit card for your Black Friday shopping and check the credit card statement regularly
- Don’t get phished!
- Ensure your device anti-virus and security software is up to date
Be safe out there…!
