November is here and it’s time to start making your list and checking it twice. But before you start shopping for that perfect holiday gift, make sure you have the tools and information you need to keep yourself safe and your personal information secure. Forecasters predict U.S. holiday e-commerce sales will be up 35 percent and generate more than $190 billion but along with the surge in online shopping, comes a spike in online scams. When COVID hit, it became very clear that this was becoming even riskier because people were increasing their online presence. Here are some tips to help mitigate the risk and potential damage.

When you create accounts online, use a different password for every account. That way if your password gets compromised on one account, the attacker will not be able to break into all your other accounts. Completely random passwords are safest, but they tend to be harder to remember. Write them down in a safe place or use a password manager program. One way to generate completely random passwords for your online accounts is with LastPass Premium, a top-rated password manager that actually creates safe and unique passwords for every online account you use. Once passwords are created, the software simplifies your online shopping by automatically filling in those long and complicated passwords for you.

One of the best ways to protect yourself and your personal information is to stick with websites and vendors you’re familiar with, do your research on those you haven’t heard of before and be smart about the way you set up your accounts. Another way to add security is to pay with plastic as it's much safer than using debit or gift cards. Make sure that when you do enter a payment that you’re using a credit card or PayPal. Those are the two payments methods that didn’t lose as much money. The FTC adds that credit card companies also let you dispute unauthorized charges or temporarily withhold payment when you suspect you’ve fallen victim to a scam.

If this year has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is normal right now. So it should be no surprise that holiday shopping will also look and feel different in 2020. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If no one else has that product, and it’s a great price, just be very careful and proceed with caution.