LANSING - While the new EMV "chip" cards may prevent criminals from stealing credit card information through in-store purchases, they won't provide any more security when it comes to online shopping.

Suzy Khoury, Consumer Education Presenter for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, said during an open public meeting at Letts Community Center that identity theft ranks at the top for complaints with the Federal Trade Commission.

"18% of the complaints that are received come in this category, so we definitely need to do something about it," said Khoury. "Something that we always ask the community to do is just to be proactive and be vigilant and careful in how we are using our personal information, who we are sharing our personal information with."

With the holiday season quickly approaching, many expect higher cases of online fraud since they believe criminals will go where there's less vulnerability.

Cale Sauter from Liquid Web, a Lansing-based international web hosting company, says the most popular targets are (websites) that haven't updated their security practices.

"One of the biggest forms of hacking that we see here are people that don't update their plug-ins that they're using for their website because that just creates another portal that hackers can sneak in and steal information with," explained Sauter.

One way to better protect yourself is to not use public Wi-Fi when making sensitive transactions online. Instead, shop at home using a personal computer or laptop.

"It's always a risk, and if you are concerned about that it's best to just do this at home," said Sauter. "It's always a good idea to not be entering sensitive information over any sort of public connection."

Sauter says finding a lock icon and "https" in the URL means the website is more safe and secure.

"As long as people are making sure that the places they're shopping online are secure towards this sort of thing, generally they should have nothing to worry about."

Other recommendations from experts for online shoppers are to never open an email or its attachments from an unknown sender, never email or text financial or account information and avoid using the same password for multiple accounts and websites.