Don’t let cybercrooks make your online holiday shopping hellish

By Bree Fowler / The Associated Press

New York—Online fraud spikes during the holiday shopping season, as people searching for the perfect gifts take to cyberspace and head to traditional stores armed with their smartphones. 

“The Pandora’s box of cyber attacks is about to open,” says Pete Tyrrell, chief operating officer for Digital Guardian, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based data protection firm. “The cybercriminals are getting more and more creative—and at the end of the day, it’s your personal information at risk.”

Here are some tips for protecting yourself and your information from online Grinches:

Beware of gifts of free Wi-Fi

It’s awfully tempting to sign on to a store’s free wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) Internet while you’re out shopping, especially since store walls are notorious for blocking or weakening smartphone data connections. But fraudsters may also be lurking on the networks, ready to use that connection to steal credit-card data or other personal information.

“People may want to log on to their Amazon accounts to check prices, but open Wi-Fi is probably the least secure place to do that,” says Michael Kaiser, executive director of the United States’ National Cyber Security Alliance.

And never use open Wi-Fi connections to check bank-account information. The last thing you want a hacker to have is a direct connection to your bank account.

If you’re tech-savvy enough to use VPN software—short for “virtual private network,” a technique for shutting would-be eavesdroppers out of your connection—on your phone, then free Wi-Fi is safe so long as you have the VPN on. For most people, though, it’s simply best to stick to your cellular connection.

Shoppers also need to be on the lookout for less high-tech thieves when shopping online in crowded public places, like coffeeshops, says Nitin Bhandari, senior vice president for products at Opera Software Solutions. That means keepings your screens out of the views of others—even smartphones, which are bigger and easier to read from a distance than they used to be.

Swim away from potential phish

Phishing spikes during the holiday season. E-mails that offer great deals on holiday gifts or donation pitches from charities could actually be attempts to steal your credit-card or login information. Another popular trick: fake e-mails supposedly sent by online retailers or shippers such as FedEx or UPS, saying that a payment for an order didn’t go through, or that an order didn’t ship.

Don’t click on links in these e-mails. It could contain malware or take you to a fake website that looks very much like that of a legitimate company. Instead of getting help, you’ll most likely have your personal information stolen.

Panic over the possibility of not getting a gift in time can make people click before they think, Kaiser says. So, it’s best to slow down. If you think an e-mail is genuine, just go directly to the main website of the company in question.

Check your accounts for ‘naughty’ activity

Both during and after the holidays, shoppers need to keep a close eye on their accounts. The easiest way to do this is to use the same credit card for all of your holiday shopping. Never use your debit card; if hackers get a hold of your number, they could clean out your bank account.

A dedicated e-mail account can also help keep things organized.

It’s also a good idea to use different user names and different passwords for your various shopping accounts. That way, if one is compromised, it’s less likely that the others will fall to hackers, as well, says Tim Francis, the head of “cyber insurance” policies at Travelers.

If it looks too good to be true…

Websites and e-mails that advertise hot deals on popular or hard-to-find gifts, along with free or deeply discounted gift cards, are probably scams. “I still haven’t been able to buy an iPad for $7,” Tyrrell joked.

It’s best to stick with e-commerce sites you know are real and go directly to those websites. Don’t click on Web ads.

Shopping on the websites of companies you’ve previously done business with can also save you time and hassle, says Steve Platt, a vice president at credit-monitoring company Experian.

Online retailers will be on the lookout for fraudsters, too. That means they might be more likely to flag a transaction—and slow down your shopping—if they haven’t dealt with you before.

“The more information they know about you and your purchases, the more likely you’ll have a seamless experience,” Platt says.