How to Protect Your Credit Card From a Data Breach

You never know when or where hackers will strike, so follow these fraud prevention tips.

By Anisha SekarJan. 6, 2014
Even if you're not one of the 40 million Target shoppers whose credit or debit card information was stolen Nov. 27 to Dec. 15, you've probably heard of the data breach. With the list of hacked companies, websites and apps growing longer, it's time to take a serious look at credit card security and what you can do to stay safe online. We'll run through the basics of credit card companies' fraud prevention methods and what you can do to protect yourself.

How credit cards work

Your credit card has a lot of information that can be used to verify its authenticity: an expiration date, a three-digit security number and your name. There's also a magnetic stripe on the back of the card that contains all that information and more. When you swipe your credit card, the information on the magnetic stripe gets transmitted to a third party, who then verifies with your bank that all your information is correct and approves the transaction.

There are other authentication methods, such as checking your signature or asking to see an ID, but not every merchant takes these steps. Additionally, if you're making an online purchase, you might be required to input the three-digit number called the card verification value, or CVV, as well as the card number and expiration date. Merchants aren't allowed to store the CVV in their databases in an effort to keep that information away from hackers. Therefore, merchants ask you to enter your CVV to prove that you actually have the physical card.

What about the rest of the world?

America lags behind the rest of the world in terms of credit card security techniques. We use magnetic stripes to hold our data, whereas other countries use EMV chips. These chips use a different (some say better) method of encrypting data. While magnetic stripes have the same encryption method, the method for EMV chips varies, making them harder to hack. This has produced dramatic results on point-of-sale transactions. For example, the United Kingdom rolled out EMV technology in the 2000s and saw fraud rates drop by 63 percent between 2004 and 2010, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

The United States is moving closer to widespread EMV adoption, but for now, we're still using our old magnetic stripe cards.

How can I keep my data safe?

Here are a few ways to protect your credit card data beyond the encryption methods offered by merchants:

Make sure you sign the back of your credit card – if you don't, your fraud liability might be higher.

When making online purchases from your computer or phone, make sure the web address starts with "https://" instead of "http://."

Use a personal finance service like Mint.com to instantly see which transactions have been made on which card.

Shred credit card statements and anything that has your credit card number or personal information on it.

Be wary of making online purchases on a public Wi-Fi connection – they're easy to hack. If you find yourself using public Wi-Fi often, consider getting a VPN, which is more secure.

But don't worry too much

While credit card fraud is a hassle to deal with, your liability is limited. By law, you'll never be on the hook for more than $50 if your credit card is stolen and the thief racks up charges. You're also not liable for any purchases made after you report the card lost or stolen. In the wake of the Target data breach, it's reassuring to know that you have no liability if your card information, rather than the card itself, is stolen. Finally, many credit cards offer zero-liability policies that provide better protection than the law requires.

If you ever fall victim to a Target-like data breach, call your bank right away to report the incident. Don't panic, though – federal law gives you quite a bit of protection.

Anisha Sekar writes for NerdWallet, a personal finance website dedicated to helping consumers

.http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/01/06/how-to-protect-your-credit-card-from-a-data-breach

Make Money Blogging

Do you want to make money blogging? If you do – you’re not alone. More and more bloggers are finding that blogging is a profitable medium. Whether it be to earn a few extra dollars a week to feed their coffee habit, or making enough money to stop them having to get a part time job to get through college, or whether they’ve got it to a point where they are able to make a full time living from their blogging – there are tens of thousands of bloggers who make money blogging.

How to Make Money Blogging

In this page I want to share some information for beginners on how to make money blogging. For a very quick and broad visual intro – check out this Make Money Blogging MindMap which visualizes just SOME of the ways bloggers make money blogging.
Firstly – lets get our expectations right. Not everyone who tries to make money blogging becomes rich. In fact those who do well from blogging are in the minority. I’m sorry if this disappoints you – but I’m not here to hype this up or make any promises. It is possible to make money blogging – but it takes time and a lot of hard work – and it doesn’t happen for everyone!
For a picture of how realistic it is check out my post – Can You Really Make Money Blogging: 7 Things I know about Making Money from Blogging.
Secondly – let me start by sharing my own top Money Making Methods but below that point you to some great resources and teaching on how to increase your income from blogging.

What follows is a quick summary of my main income streams from blogging. Before you read it though – keep in mind that every blog is unique in how it can make money. Some of the following income streams will work on some blogs a lot better than others – the key is to experiment with as many as possible and see what works best for you.
The following income streams (from a number of blogs) have helped me to earn a six figure income each year for the last 5 years from blogging. I’ve ranked them from highest to lowest.
I hope you find it useful to see the mix and variety of ways that I earn a living from blogging.

1. AdSense

Despite not using it here at ProBlogger any more (here’s why) I continue to use AdSense with amazing effect on my other blogs. I have them all set to show image and text based ads and find that 250×300 pixel ads work best (usually with a blended design). I don’t have much luck with their ‘referrals’ program but their normal ads work a treat and continue to be the biggest earner for me.

2. Affiliate Programs

I run a variety of affiliate programs on my blogs – most of which bring in smaller amounts of money that don’t really justify a category of their own (but which certainly add up).
These include recommending quality products like these here on ProBlogger: Thesis WordPress theme, Yaro’s Blog Mastermind Coaching Program and How to Launch the F*** out of your E-Book (and others) as well as some great products on my photography blog including 123 of Digital Imaging, David DuChemin’s amazing Photography E-Books and Mitchell Kanashkevich’s great ebooks.
The great thing about many of these programs is that they are of such high quality that they sell themselves and I am being emailed from readers who sign up to them thanking me for the recommendation!

3. E-Book Sales

Last time I did a wrap up of how I make money blogging this category did not exist for me – I didn’t really have any of my own products to sell at all. However in the last year or so I’ve released 3 E-books – 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography and Photo Nuts and Bolts: Know Your Camera and Take Better Photos. While these products all only sell for under $20 they certainly add up and some months this has been my biggest category of income. The reason they were only ranking at #3 in the last month was that I didn’t do a product launch (I wrote about one launch which brought in $72,000 in a week here). This is an income stream I see growing as I add more E-books to my range (expect 3 in the coming few months).

4. Continuity Programs

This is another newer category for me but one that continues to grow.
A continuity program is a site where you earn a recurring income from people who subscribe to a service you offer.
For me this includes two sites – ProBlogger.com and Third Tribe Marketing. Both programs are membership sites and generate monthly income from the thousands of members that they have as a part of them.

5. Private Ad Sales/Sponsorships

Private ad sales directly to advertisers have fallen for me in the last year (they previously ranked #3 on this list). This is partly due to a change in my own focus but also partly due to the economy as it is. I should note that this area does vary a little from month to month depending upon the campaigns we’re asked to run – we’ve had a couple of months where it actually ranked #2 in the last year.
This includes ad sales of the 125 x 125 ads here at ProBlogger as well as a campaign or two at Digital Photography School.

6. Chitika

Chitka continues to be a great performer for me on my blogs. They traditionally have worked best on product related blogs although their Premium ad units now convert well on a larger range of blogs.
While I’ve focused a little less on Chitika in the last 6 months (mainly as I’ve released my own products and moved a little away from advertising) they do continue to perform well where I use them and over the time I’ve been using Chitika they’ve now earned me over a quarter of a million dollars – as a result I can’t recommend them enough!

7. Amazon Associates

Amazon’s affiliate program has been one of my big movers in the last 12 months. I used to make a few odd dollars from it – however in recent times it has become a significant earner for me (in fact it’s now earned me over $100,000 since I started using it). Christmas time (and the lead up to it) is a particularly good time for Amazon – last December it would have ranked #2 on this list.

8. ProBlogger Job Boards

The job boards here at ProBlogger continue to grow each month in the number of advertisements that are being bought. This enabled me to invest most of the money that they’d earned a while back into getting a new back end for the boards and to redesign them. These job boards now bring in over $1000 a month in revenue which is pretty nice considering that they are so low maintenance to run. They also offer a service to readers and add value to the overall blog.
The only problem that I face with the job boards is that there are so many bloggers looking for work that the demand for jobs far exceeds the supply. On the good side of things is that advertisers are reporting getting amazing quality of applications.

9. Speaking Fees

I get asked to do a lot of speaking and increasingly they are paid opportunities. I’m not able to do as many as I would like (mainly because I live in Australia and most of what I’m asked to do is overseas and I only travel 2-3 times a year) – however in April I did a couple of events and the income was enough to include in this list.

Other Income

In addition to all of the above there are many smaller incomes. Many of these are from smaller advertising programs that I test but none are big enough to really rate a mention here.
The other income stream that there was no actual money from in April was book royalties from the ProBlogger Book. These are only paid every 6 or so months (not in April). It’s probably also worth mentioning that authors don’t tend to make a whole lot of money on book royalties – you don’t write books to get rich (unless you sell a lot of them).

Useful Resources for Bloggers Wanting to Make Money Blogging

A lot has been written on the topic of making money online from blogs. There is a lot of wonderful information out there – but also a lot of hype and sometimes dangerous information.
Below are a number of articles that I’ve written exploring some of the different ways that bloggers make money.

How to Make Money Blogging from Advertising

Advertising Optimization – A series of posts on how to optimize advertising on your blog including posts on Traffic, Ad Positioning, Ad Design, Ad Relevancy and High Paying Ads.
AdSense Tips for Bloggers – an 8 part series of posts that walk bloggers new to Google’s AdSense (the way I make much of my income) through how to use it effectively to make money on their blogs.
Positioning Your AdSense Ads - a 3 part series on how I literally doubled my AdSense earnings overnight by repositioning my ads
How to Guarantee that You’ll Never Make More than 0.14 cents per month from AdSense – 10 points to help you earn more money from AdSense
How Quickly After Starting a Blog Should I put Ads on it? – one of the most common questions I am asked
10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive to Advertisers – an Ad Guy tells all

How to Make Money Blogging from Affiliate Programs

10 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on Your Blog – these tips helped me grow my affiliate earnings many times over
The Power of Getting Readers in the Door at Amazon - a case study on how linking to Amazon can lead to some surprising results
9 Reasons Why I am an Amazon Affiliate – Amazon is one of my bigger earners

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