Home
Index

# Avoid fraudulent websites

When you go to a secure webpage—for instance, to do online banking—Safari checks the website’s certificate and compares it with certificates that are known to be legitimate. If Safari doesn’t recognize the website’s certificate, or if the website doesn’t have one, Safari displays a warning message.

Safari also checks lists of fraudulent websites that have been identified by security services. If you attempt to visit one of these websites, Safari displays a warning message.

How to respond to a certificate warning

- Click Show Certificate, and inspect the certificate for suspicious information.

  Look for a message that says the certificate is not trusted, or was signed by an untrusted issuer. If you see a message like that, click Cancel, and do not go to the website.

  Click the triangle next to the word “Details.” Check to make sure that the name and organization match those of the person or organization that owns the website. If anything looks unusual or is not what you expect, click Cancel, and do not go to the website.

  If you continue to the website, double-check the address in Safari’s toolbar to confirm that it is the correct address for the page you want to visit. The address should begin with “https://,” and the name of the website should be spelled correctly. Sometimes fraudulent websites masquerade as trusted websites by changing one or two letters of the trusted website’s address.

- Contact the administrator of the website, explain the problem, and request more information.

If you continue, the certificate is stored on your computer, and this warning isn’t displayed again for this website until you quit and restart Safari. If you like, you can change the trust settings for the certificate later using Keychain Access.

Open Keychain Access

How to respond to a warning that a website is fraudulent

If Safari warns you that a website is fraudulent, do not visit that site. If you think the warning message is in error, contact the administrator or owner of the website for information. Never provide secure or personal information at a website unless you are confident that it is secure.

### Related Topics

Certificates and secure websites

Identify secure websites

What is “phishing”?