Cyber Experts Offer Holiday Shopping Security Tips
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Experts were warning holiday shoppers who buy their gifts online to use a little caution when they hunt for bargains.
The FBI has said, if a deal offered by an unfamiliar merchant seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, agreed.
"Even with all the Black Friday deals, you want to make sure that, if you're looking at new sources of buying gifts that are offering deals that just seem tremendously below what everybody else is offering for the same merchandise, that that could be a red flag," he said.
According to the NCSA, approximately 52 percent of shoppers used their phones last year to make purchases. That's why Kaiser said shoppers should be careful of shopping over public Wi-Fi networks, and use multi-step verification to access bank and credit accounts.
"There's no such thing as perfect security, but certainly I think that after last year's major retail data breaches, I think there is a lot more focus on protecting information," he said.
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The NCSA suggested updating your mobile device's anti-virus software, and using more complicated passwords.
Experts also suggested not clicking on email links which offer big freebies, or if you're unsure who sent the link.
If you buy theater tickets for yourself, or for others as gifts, you should not post photos of the tickets online, because the barcodes could be copied and fraudulently sold.
