National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) is here again, and as an NCSAM Champion, DigiCert is participating in various activities to help promote this worthy cause. We will provide a daily online security tip weekdays in October on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. Each Friday we will recap the top tips of the week here on our blog.

We kick things off with a focus on helping people be safer online shoppers and social networkers. Here are the first four tips to keep you safe shopping, surfing, and socializing on the web.

1. Before you ever share personal information, identify signs of a secure website. These include the padlock icon in the browser address bar, “https” in the web address, and the green address bar with the company’s name included. If all three of these are found, the web operator has gone through Extended Validation by a Certificate Authority like DigiCert to validate its identity. Any information you provide on a site with these characteristics will be encrypted in transit.
2. Learn what’s behind the padlock and how to read a web certificate’s contents to verify its legitimacy. Then, teach someone else. You can get started here.
3. Use encryption everywhere. Learn if your e-mail or other service provider offers it by default, and if they don’t, ask them how to deploy it.
4. Patch and upgrade your hardware and software on a regular basis. Be sure to check your device(s) regularly for needed updates and stay current. This will help protect you from the latest threats. Go here to learn how to set up alerts in Windows.

Feel free to incorporate these tips within your organizations and networks. Next Friday we'll have a full week worth of more tips to help you stay safe.