The Internet has made our lives easy in more ways than one and today we are accustomed to use the Net for everything from banking to paying our bills to shopping. For this, we are required to fill in our personal information and use our credit or debit cards for online transactions. This is convenient as we do not even have to leave the confines of our homes and yet we can enjoy shopping at our favorite destinations! However, this huge availability of sensitive information on the Web has given rise to crooks who are after collecting this huge database of information and using it to their benefits.
Checking the URL of the Web page is simple and perhaps one of the best ways to detect if the site is secure or not. Just have a look at the URL and you'll find that in case of Web pages that are secure, the URL begins with "https" instead of "http" as found on ordinary Web pages. For example, have a look at the URL of the 'login' page of Facebook and you'll find that it begins with "https". When you open a Web page that is secure, you'll find an icon of a lock somewhere on the browser window. While in Microsoft Internet Explorer, you should see the icon on the right of the address bar (or location bar) of a secure web page, if you're using Mozilla Firefox browser, you'd find it in the bottom right corner of the page i.e., on the right side of the 'Status Bar' located at the bottom of the page.
