Why Should You Use A VPN While Shopping Online?

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Last Updated on: March 12, 2023

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 yourself 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 with 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.

Contents hide

1. Credit Card Fraud Statistics

2. How Credit Cards Are Protected?

3. How The Attacks Work?

3.1. Man-in-the-middle

3.2. Phishing

3.3. Keyloggers

3.4. RFID Scanning

4. How A VPN Helps Protect Credit Cards

4.1. Related Articles

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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?

When you shop online, almost all websites that can accept a credit card will use multiple safeguards to guarantee that your connection to their servers is legitimate and unseen by the eyes of any potential hackers.

There are a few key systems in place which help to accomplish this goal, but primarily websites will use an encryption technique known as SSL, or a “Secure Socket Layer”, to verify the true nature of your connection. SSL works through a public-key encryption method that uses three separate “handshakes” between your device, the website, and the trust certificate issuer. You might also see this technique referred to as the more modern implementation of itself, TLS (Transport Layer Security), but since almost all of TLS 1.0 is essentially built off the back of SSL 3.0 the two can pretty much be used interchangeably.

Using a public-key verification system makes it next to impossible for a hacker to use something like a phishing hack to trick you into handing over your credit card details without knowing it. But, this doesn’t make it impossible either. Read on to find out how hackers have gotten increasingly inventive in the ways they try and steal your credit card information (sometimes straight out of the air), and why VPN is the only way to truly protect your information while shopping online. That’s why a VPN for online shopping is a necessary tool to protect your credentials.

How The Attacks Work?

Man-in-the-middle

Whenever you read about online shopping security, every site worth it’s salt will always tell you to never shop online using a public WiFi hotspot like the ones you might find at Starbucks or an airport.

This is because of the potential of what’s known as a “man-in-the-middle” attack. Man-in-the-middle attacks, or MITM, work when a hacker quite literally injects themselves into the middle of a transaction between you and a website in the hopes that they can catch you in the act of online shopping and decrypt your connection en route. Read our guidelines for VPN for online shopping to find out everything you need to know.

The way MITM attacks are achieved can be as varied as the attack vector itself, but these days many hackers like to use a technique known as “spoofing” to fool unsuspecting users into connecting to fake WiFi hotspots that they own and operate themselves.

It works like this: Let’s say you’re sitting down at a Starbucks with your laptop for a day of scones, lattes, and a little light online shopping. You hit your available WiFi networks looking for a hotspot to connect to, and find one called “Free-Starbucks-WiFi”. Without a second thought, you hit “connect” and start shopping to your heart’s content. VPN for online shopping will be a safe and secure method to shop online.

Only problem? The official WiFi hotspot for that Starbucks is actually called “Free-StarbucksWiFi”, and that little dash can make all the difference. Turns out the WiFi you’re connected to is actually a fake hotspot being run by a hacker who might be sitting in the same cafe right across from you and you wouldn’t even know it.

Now that you’re connected to their network, they can decrypt all the data that passes through their impromptu hotspot, including your credit card details as soon as they’re entered into the device you’re shopping from. Read our guidelines for VPN for online shopping to find out everything you need to know.

Not only that, but because they totally own the connection they can also skim just about any information you type in, including your home address, real name, phone number, and anything else they would need to impersonate you online. Using a VPN is the only way to shop online safely on public WiFi.

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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.

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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.