How to Tell If a Website Is Legit
Given the nature of our digital existence, we could, at any moment, be in contact with a cybercriminal or fall victim to a phishing attack and be none the wiser about it. It’s therefore understandable if you feel the paranoia grip you right before you visit a website your friend told you about or click on the advertisement flashing in some corner of your screen. A good rule of thumb is to pay attention, use good judgment when browsing, and look out for signs that can help you gauge the credibility of the website.

Here are 10 ways to find out if a website is real or a fake:

1. Verify the Website’s Trust Seal

trust seal attempts to communicate to you as an end user that the website they’re on is safe, and that the business itself views security as a priority. It is a stamp granted by a security partner (such as a certificate authority, or CA) that’s indicative of the legitimacy of the website. If a trust seal is legitimate, clicking on it will take you to a page that verifies the authenticity of that seal.

2. Does It Have the Padlock with HTTPS? Did You View the Certificate Details?
HTTPS merely means that the communication channel between you and the server is encrypted and secure (i.e., an attacker listening in on the network will get garbled encrypted information that won’t make sense). HTTPS does not assure that the server you are communicating with will not steal your data. If the server is itself malicious, the S in “HTTPS” will do very little to ensure security.

Look at it this way: While it’s a no brainer that if your browser flags a website as “not secure,” no sensitive information should be entered on the page. But even if the site uses HTTPS, it doesn’t automatically guarantee safety. This is why SSL/TLS certificates offer different validation levels.

To view the digital certificate issued to the website, click on the padlock in the web address bar and select Certificate if using Google’s Chrome browser. For Firefox, click on the padlock and then on the arrow to show connection details. Click on more information and then view certificate.


3. Check the Contact Page
Our third recommendation for how to tell if a website is legit is to verify whether the website has a physical address. Does the company have a phone number listed and an email ID? Try sending an email to the ID provided on the contact page and check if it gets delivered. Verify that the email is not a generic one


(such as xyz@gmail.com) but one that comes with the company brand (such as name@companydomain.com).

4. Check Whether the Company Has a Social Media Presence
Most legitimate companies have some level of a social media presence. Fake websites sometimes have the icons for Twitter or Facebook, but the graphics don’t actually link to a real account. Read company reviews on such platforms and see if you can find real employees of the company on LinkedIn.

5. Don’t Click on Links Within the Body of an Email
Unless you requested a password reset link, there’s almost never a compelling reason to click on links in your email.

If PayPal was writing to you, they would know your .........



Click the link below to see all their tricks

https://www.facebook.com/112155750957759/posts/115557407284260/

Nice thread!