Why Should You Use A VPN While Shopping Online?

Many shoppers may believe that browsing online for items and services is a safe experience without any risks. However, this is not the case Why Should You Use A VPN While Shopping Online? Shopping over the internet can open you up to viewable data that could be potentially misused.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) offers an extra layer of security while conducting purchases online, encrypting your data and shielding it from third-party hackers.

Furthermore, a VPN can also help with online privacy by masking unprotected IP addresses and preventing location tracking. Utilizing a VPN for shopping online will not only protect confidential information from cybercriminals, but it could offer access to exclusive deals that are limited by region or country.

Credit Card Fraud Statistics

According to the latest reports covering credit card fraud, in 2016 losses from credit card attacks topped just over $16 billion, and upwards of nearly 50% of all of those thefts happened in the United States alone.

On average victims of credit card fraud reported a loss of $7,761, though oftentimes criminals will only take very small amounts from someone’s account over time in order to remain incognito. By only stealing small amounts from dozens, even hundreds of credit cards at once, hackers can fly under the radar and usually make out with much larger paydays in the long run. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method to shop online.

45% of all these attacks were CNP transactions, or “card not present” (i.e – over the phone or shopping online). 100% of victims were not using a VPN for online shopping.

How Credit Cards Are Protected?

How The Attacks Work?

Phishing

The next attack vector for stealing credit cards online uses a technique known as “phishing”. You may have heard of this one before, as it’s almost always in the news thanks to high powered political figures and CEOs falling for it every other day.

Basically phishing works by emailing or messaging a link to you through email or social media, posing as a legitimate shopping site like Amazon and offering mega deals on items you need through fake links. Like MITM spoofing, often all it takes is one character being out of place in the sender’s email address to fool most victims of the scam. Read our guidelines of VPN for online shopping to find out everything you need to know. 

Once on the site (which will look and function identically to the site it’s impersonating), you’ll think you’re shopping for the item you want, but really once you enter your information at checkout the site will simply send a fake confirmation while the perpetrator makes off with your financial data.

This is why it’s important that any time you shop online that you always check for the “secure” HTTPS logo in the top-right of your browser to verify the site you’re shopping on is legitimate, and not just the product of another scam. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method to shop online.

Keyloggers

This is likely one of the most popular methods that hackers will use to try and skim your credit card information, and the reason we left it for last is right now there aren’t really any VPNs out there that can detect if one has been installed on your device.

The way that keyloggers work is pretty simple (and explained basically right in the name): a piece of malware is delivered to your device (usually though a dodgy download), and then runs in the background without you knowing about it. From there the virus will log every keystroke you punch into your device, keeping a special eye out for sequences of numbers that resemble a credit card.

Once the credit card number is recorded, the hacker gets an alert and it’s off to the races. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method to shop online.

RFID Scanning

Though there was a huge kerfuffle made about the threat that RFID-enabled credit cards posed when they were first introduced a few years back, this is one of the least likely ways you could lose your credit card information. Read our guidelines of VPN for online shopping to find out everything you need to know. 

Less than five percent of all credit cards in circulation carry RFID capability, and of that figure even less rely on the non-encrypted first version. Many companies tried to make a quick buck selling snake oil “RFID-blocking” wallets and purses, but as of 2019 there haven’t been any reports of hackers using RFID scanning devices to steal numbers on a wide scale. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method to shop online.

How A VPN Helps Protect Credit Cards

So where do VPNs fit into all of this? Well, much like the security that an SSL-enabled connection provides, a VPN creates a 256-bit AES encrypted tunnel between your devices and the VPN provider. This means that the only parties who would ever be able to see your information are you and the intended online shopping portal destination.

Even with a spoofed WiFi hotspot, the end-to-end encryption of a VPN guarantees that — even if captured in transit — your traffic would never be visible to a potential attacker thanks to the obfuscation layer installed on top of all your data.

A VPN is a surefire method to protect your credit card while shopping online, and should be the first service you turn to whenever you plan to pick up a new pair of boots on Amazon or just want to get a quick bite delivered to where you are on the go. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method.