How do you know when a website is safe or or not?

Question

i kno is not safe to put personal infomation on ur computer but i wanna know how a person is safe from ppl hacking the websites. Just incase i have to enter personal infomatiton

Answer 1

You really do not know for sure if a website is safe or not. One good way to tell would be to notice the precautions/programs they use for different pages. For example if you have a Sprint account, if you pay your bill it takes you to a new browser that is locked to all outside IP addresses except your own.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

If ur using Internet Explorer, then whenever ur on a safe site, u will see a lock in the bottom right corner of the window indicating that the site is secure. If ur using Mozilla Firefox, then the address bar of the browser will turn yellow with an icon of a lock, which indicates that the site is secure. Although exactly how secure the site is depends on the site's ability to prevent hacking...

Answer 3

Even secure sites like have been mentioned by other posters, can be malicious. Consider this: A small company doing primarily mail-order business uses a server to record orders and shipments and do all the tasks associated with such a business. Now, the server will require routine maintenance from time to time and perhaps the business owners don't know how to do it. They contract this service out to another firm that specializes in computer system maintenance. This service is done in the wee hours of the morning so as not to disrupt the glut of orders during normal business hours. This service pays their techs around $10/hour or so, to do minimal maintenance on the system. The "tech" knows how to steal credit card numbers and such from the server and sell them for a LOT more than he makes in a day and nobody will know he took the info. After all, HE is the system tech! I had this happen to me. I placed an order with a company that had a "secure server", paid with my card, and had it stolen immediately. I bought a laptop for a guy in Indonesia, a flat screen TV for a guy in France, and then the card number ended up in India where it was maxed out to the tune of $25 grand! Thank God the site that the laptop was ordered from had a return e-mail confirmation of the order or I would not have known it. My e-mail address was compromised as well. I contacted my card bank and they cancelled the account and set me up with a new one on the phone. I was never charged a dime for all the charges run up on the card. Thank you VISA! That "padlock" is not a sign of a secure server, only that it represents itself as one. Who shall guard the guards?

Answer 4

As mentioned, we can never be 100% a web-site is safe.
The link is old from PC World, during the last Super Bowl Game. People were going to the Super Bowl web site and reading stats and entering whatevers to win something. Unaware a hacker had placed a malicious Java Script.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/128758-1/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws
Legitimate Web-Sites do everything they can to protect us and our personal information, but, this just the way things work.
Just for more information. A worker at the Veterans Administration took a Laptop home and it was stolen from their vehicle when they stopped at a store. The Laptop was recovered and they believed no information was stolen. But, this had names, address, social security numbers etc. of many Veterans.

I was wrong, it was stolen from the home.
A stolen laptop computer housing the personal data of 26.5 million veterans and about 2.2 million active duty personnel has been recovered, nearly two months after it was stolen from the home of an employee from the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA).
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci1196867,00.html

Answer 5

Download the free SiteAdvisor.

"McAfee SiteAdvisor warns you before you interact with a dangerous Web site. Traditional security products focus on trying to clean up problems after they occur."

"McAfee SiteAdvisor also complements and enhances your existing security software by detecting threats which traditional security products often miss, including spyware attacks, online scams, and sites that spam you"
http://www.siteadvisor.com/

It is by no means perfect, but it can help.

Answer 6

If I'm unsure about any important sight like a Bank I call them offline to verify their URL if it's theirs or not.

It pays to pick up the phone and call when your unsure
about a sight or a Company especially when you have to
enter very sensitive information.

Answer 7

use www.siteadvisor.com