The dangers of online shopping

The dangers of online shopping? For many years now, large companies around the world have used high tech security and spent millions on it to prove that the statement is wrong and that online shopping is safe. In all fairness, they were right and online shopping has today reached a new level in terms of security. But as the good guys improve their defenses, so does the bad guys who improve their attacks.

Back then, the way those perpetrators would steal your information would be by hacking into the website and steal all your information when you typed it in to make a purchase. But that is now almost impossible. Why? Because the millions spent on increasing website and Internet security is taking effect. They can't easily hack into a website anymore. Great news, so it looks like the dangers of online shopping is a thing of the past? Wrong.

So what do those perpetrators do? Instead of hacking into the website, now they go directly to the source. Yes that means both yours and my computer. It is easier to hack into and let's face it. The security for our computer is not as good as those for the website. They spend thousands every year, whereas we usually end up using the free and limited versions.

Not that the free versions isn't of any good, it is good, but compared to many of those high tech hackers, it is not enough. Even if we used the paid and full version security systems and anti-viruses and anti-spywares, we do not update them as frequently as we should. How often? It depends. Sometimes, those hackers will update their software to be undetected every few days.

That is how they keep their hackings unnoticed by people. So how does this contribute to the dangers of online shopping? Simple, the website itself is secure, the hackers will not be able to hack into them and steal your information. But the websites can't stop them from stealing the information through your own computer.

So how do they hack into your computer? They install their own programs into your computer. They can't do it remotely, so they find ways to make us install them ourselves. How? By cleverly disguising their programs. They will combine it with another software that people might want. And when you install those softwares, their own program is installed silently without you even knowing.

If you are the type that loves to download new softwares from torrents or other unsecured downloading source, you might already have been a victim without knowing it. If possible, only download softwares from their main website only. Downloading multiple toolbars are also a threat. They can use those toolbars to block your computer's security system.

If you are someone who has downloaded lots of software that even you are not sure of what software you have, and has lots of toolbars on your Internet browser, you might just be infected with their program already. The best way to deal with it, is to format your computer, and try to limit what you download and where you download it from. The dangers of online shopping are real, but can be avoided if you do this. If you keep your computer simple and the anti-virus up to date, online shopping is as safe as baby toys.

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