Security

Protection from online scams or fraud

Ø      Never use debit cards as it takes longer to get your money back

Ø      Use a dedicated credit card set aside especially for online purchases. This makes it easier to see if someone has been buying things on your card as there won’t be regular purchases on that account too

Ø      Create a separate email account for online purchases with a different password than usual. This means that it isn’t too bad if the account is taken over as it is not your main one. Also, if they did get your main account, they could use it to access other online accounts by using ‘forgot my password’

I use both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Both have some similar security features. The main two that are visible are:

Ø      When you are on a website where you put in a password e.g. Hotmail, a little pad-lock image appears next to the url or down the bottom left hand side of the screen. On some newer version of these internet browsers, the url actually is highlighted green to take it clear that this is a secure site

Ø      When you are going into a secure site such as Hotmail, a little screen pops up and says that you are entering a secure website, asks if you want your password to be remembered and other such information. Also, when you press the back button, another screen pops up and says that you are leaving the secure website.

Every internet browser has security issues. Even though the bowsers’ technology is developing, the minds and technology used by hackers are developing too.

I think that the web browser with the most issues is Safari.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/06/12/safari-on-windows-a-security-risk/

This article states that “reports indicating that the browser presents a security risk to Windows users.” In this report, a man who is part of a security company states that when looking at Safari he found “6 bugs, 4 Denial of Service and 2 remote code execution bugs.”