As a thawing economy motivates shoppers to open their wallets, cyber crooks have several techniques  to commander personal identities and consumer credit account information. Follow these suggestions to ensure safe online holiday shopping.

Unless you personally know the sender, don't click on links that are embedded in the contents of emails. Hackers transmit email “phishing” messages to motivate unsuspecting recipients to click on links, enabling an operating system to be violated and subjected to malware and other online invasions. Even if the offer has a killer deal, rather then click the link, use a different browser window to access the site. Also, be sure to redeem any coupon codes by cutting and pasting them into the proper field.

The aforementioned online safety tip includes merchant emails links, too. Unfortunately, cyber crooks are so enterprising that they have been known to replicate company logos, luring t their victims to counterfeit sites to acquire their account information. So, if you receive an email, if possible — contact the company by phone to confirm that the communication is genuine.

Never do holiday shopping via public, unsecured Wi-Fi networks. 

Since, Internet pirates are so artistic at replicating major brand Web sites, misleading consumers to make a purchase, always check the security certificate, by double clicking the padlock icon, in the top-right corner of the browser.