Staying safe with online transactions

Performing financial transactions online (i.e., trading stocks or transferring money from one account to another) is generally safe, however, a little extra precaution won't hurt. While these steps might sound vaguely paranoid, following these simple precautions could keep your credit card information, your account number or your personal password from falling into the wrong hands.

1. Download the latest, secure, 128-byte encrypted version of Internet Explorer or Netscape today.

2. Monitor all your cookie transactions.
   • In Netscape, select Edit > Preferences > Advanced then check "Warn me before accepting a cookie."

   • In Internet Explorer, select Tools > Internet Options > and click the Security tab. Click on Custom Level. Select Prompt for the sections "Allow cookies that are stored on your computer" and "Allow per-session cookies (not stored)."

3. Pay attention to all sites requesting information during a secure transaction. If the requesting site has a name that is different from the site you're using, you don't have to accept the cookie.

4. Never open another browser or visit another, non-secured Web site while engaging in a secure online transaction.

5. Always close and restart your browser before and after using a secure session.

6. After your secure session, remove the cookie that was generated during your last secure session.
   • In Netscape, open Windows Explorer and go to Program Files > Netscape > Users > [your user name], and delete the file named cookies.txt (don't worry, the file will autogenerate itself the next time you need to create a cookie).

   • In Internet Explorer, open Windows Explorer and go to Windows > Cookies and delete the necessary cookies within.

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