PHP Security

Today I finally got all of my new credit cards and my new driver's license sent to me. I haven't gone to get my new student ID card yet, I think I'll do that next week. All of this is sort of the end result of my recent run in with the darker side of the internet. Looking back now, I don't think that I had ever really considered safety to be a real issue when I would go online. I think that I have always been one of those people that takes the relative ease of accessing the spoils of the internet and creates this idea that nothing bad can happen online. Unfortunately for me, this is not true at all. Now I understand that web application security is a huge issue.
The whole incident began when I was trying to purchase some clothes from a small website online. When I went to checkout I entered in all of my information and when I clicked confirm the site jumped to an error page. I went back and checked that my order had been received. My card showed that it had and so I just went on with my night. It wasn't until a couple of days later that I got a call on my phone that was confirming some massive and strange purchases on my card that I had never been a part of. Apparently there had been some kind of a PHP security issue with this little site and a hacker had just sat there waiting for someone like me to buy something. When the page jumped to the error message, that was really the hacker redirecting me while he or she took everything I had from me.
Since then I have been really paranoid about the internet and I make sure that any sites that I even look at are somewhat protected. I also have to keep a good eye on my credit score because they could go out and use my information in some other way without my knowing and ruin my financial future. I think that this is one of the less represented views on the internet and I feel that we all should watch ourselves while using the internet.