How will I know if the website is secure or not for transactions?

How will I know if the website is secure or not for transactions?

As I read an article Beware of the fake UnionBank website from pinoymoneytalk website this morning discussing and giving warning to his readers about phishing email that design to steal your valuable information such as bank account, credit card number and most commonly they want to steal your username and password of your online bank account.

So that it easily for them to access your online account and then transfer your money to another account. As he explained, he received an email with a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) link inside the email message telling that he must to click and go to a certain website in order to restore his account access in UnionBank of the Philippines. He knows that the site is fake that is why he immediately writes an article to warn his reader.

In connection to this article, I would like to raises awareness and share how will you know if the site you’re visiting is secure for transaction and will not compromise your information. It’s easy to find and determine which site is secure and which is not by looking and examining the Uniform Resource Locator (URL),the website address or simply by looking the first 4 letters the HTTP.

I will explain to you about the benefits of looking and examine the 4 first letter of the website address. I suggest don’t ever enter your personal information like your credit card information, bank account number etc. in an HTTP website. 

But if the website address begins with HTTPS(with letter "S")it basically means your computer is talking to the website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.

Now, what is the difference between HTTP and HTTPS?

Maybe you already knew this, but I thought it was very important enough to write and informs other who are not aware and know this.

First many people are unaware of the main difference between HTTP:// and HTTPS:// is. It's all about keeping you secure.

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

Which is just a fancy way of saying it's a Protocol (a language in a manner of speaking). In order the information to be passed back and forth between web servers and client. The important thing is the letter "S" which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.

The "S" stands for "Secure". If you visit a website or web page and look at the 4 first letter of a website address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following:

HTTP://. It means that the website you visit is talking to your Browser (ex. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome) using the regular unsecured language.

In other words, it is possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website. If you fill out a form on the website, someone might able to see the information you send to that site.

This is why I suggest never ever enter your information like your credit Card, Bank account number etc. in an HTTP website.

But if the website address begins with HTTPS:// it basically means your computer is talking to a website in a secure code that no one can eavesdrop on.

To know and to find out, try to open any of your bank website, once you open the website you may notice their homepage is using HTTP only but once you log in and open your online bank account it will change to HTTPS for security reason.

I hope you learned something and understand why this is so important. If a website ever asks you again to enter your Bank and credit Card information better you should automatically look first and examine the site if the website address begins with HTTPS. If it doesn't, then beware there's no way you're going to enter your sensitive information to that website. 


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