While many people are busy shopping for Christmas and Hanukkah presents online, the bad guys are shopping for your credit card numbers and other personal information which they can exploit.

Make sure the company you are making the purchase from is using an SSL.  SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and basically means the information which you type in on your computer, gets encrypted and sent to the website.  There are several different types of SSL certificates.  Some have better encryption than others and there are types which also verify the identity of the business.

Depending on which browser you are using, you should see either a padlock at the top or bottom of the browser window.  Also, the address will start with https://.