5 Credit Card Security Tips You Should Know
It is not always about being defensive but ideally, your focus should be more on having a proactive approach when it comes to securing your account especially your credit card. This will help to reduce the potential risk and issues before even they happen. Talking about credit cards there will be so much information you can find out but most of it, needless to say, have black holes in them. That is why most of us simply don’t focus on the right basic measures and just follows whatever is being told. But frankly, if our identity should not get stolen or account should not be hacked, it is important to take some basic measures but very seriously.
Listed below are the 5 credit card security tips that you need to know, since, to protect your credit card is common sense. The follows simple ways can help you stay secured, relax free and get utter peace of mind that is needed.
- Only Purchase It From Reliable Sites: Online shopping has become a craze these days and sometimes the credit card information that we share for shopping also gets recorded. We don’t relay think from which site are we shopping and this increases the theft risk. There are plenty of wolves out there to just wait for hacking your security and that is why, instead of opting for sites that say HTTP, always refer to the site which says https since ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’. This means there is an encryption code used for transferring the online data. It is always important to check if the page has got a lock symbol for better security
- Card Protection Should Be Practiced From Day One: You must ensure that the moment you get your card in hand, you start taking extra precautions to protect it. The protection should be done just in case, you forget anywhere or the card gets into any wrong person hand. It is always better to put on the suspicious activity alert and spend your time working for the PIN and password which can be challenging. However, when you make a password for your credit card account, remember to make it in a much strong manner and should be unique for every account. Using a similar password for your bank account and retain sites will increase the advantage of multiple authentications. If your account needs a PIN then don’t go for the number like a birthday or social security number digit as they are easily predictable
- The Card Must Always Be Treated Like Cash: We often consider treating cards like plastic. But this is the most blunder mistake that we do. Never leave your card lying around. You must treat it like cash and should always be in your wallet or the secured pocket. You must avoid considering it as plastic and be careful that it doesn’t go wrong in the hands of strangers. The more, you are cautious about your card the better it will be in safe hands than getting misused by anyone else.
- Your Network Should Be Secured Always: Be it the device or the network that you browse and use the most it must be always protected. You should always turn off the function of the auto-fill option in every browser that you see. You may want to use the digital wallet or maybe the payment system option for your Smartphone. This will ensure the electronic transactions of your cards are only done after the right authentication, encryption, and tokenization which is done. They are a lot safer than even you want to carry your credit cards. Even if you want to make the use of the digital wallet, always have a habit of having your Smartphone rightly clicked with a good pass-code and even the fingerprint access wherever required.
- Don’t Save Your Credit Card Number: It is quite understandable that one click makes all things easy for you. But to be one safer side, try to not get things simple when it comes to using a credit card. The hacker may not be able to hack your account but yes the retailer's server account where your details get saved can get hacked easily. You don’t want to get into the identity thieves victim. That is why it is important to put all your time and effort into entering the details whenever the identity is asked for every purchase.
Final Words
Even if the entire idea of identity theft may look quite invasive but we cannot change the fact that we are in a world where every day we fight to survive bravely when it comes to personal information. There is so much information that gets stored at every place across the globe that makes it easier for the thieves and even spammers to get it. Instead of being discouraged, it is always better to have a proactive approach and follow the above-mentioned tips.