Practicing Safe Banking: How to Keep Your Money Better Protected

There’s no denying that today people interact with money in a much different way than even just 10 years ago. Credit cards, mobile phones and the Internet have become the primary tools people use to manage and monitor their finances. Customers have tasted what it’s like to have anywhere, anytime access and the simplicity of checking their account balances, depositing money, paying bills and so on with the click of a button. While this new era of mobile banking brings convenience for customers, it also opens up their accounts to security risks, fraud and personal information.

With customers embracing mobile banking, they may be unknowingly revealing — via the Internet — all their account information, personal information and easy access to all of their financial assets in an unprotected and insecure way when they use their own devices or Internet to handle their money.

Below are several tips people should think about when they are using the Internet or mobile devices to manage their finances.

1. Don’t save personal information, bank account numbers and passwords on your phone or computers. Never click “remember me” when logging into your accounts, regardless of if you’re on a computer website, your phone’s web browser or even your banking app on your phone. By doing so, gives the site or application a cookie that is easily open to misappropriation.
2. Think about where you are banking from. For example, by using public Wi-Fi, it’s rather simple for someone to intercept your data in a man-in-the-middle attack. When accessing your bank account online, it is advisable to use your own Wi-Fi network that is setup with password protection. If you can’t do your banking at home, you can still check your account on the go, just make sure your device is using cellular data instead of Wi-Fi.
3. Be conscious of mobile apps you download. It is important to read the privacy policies and understand what type of personal information an app can access before you click download.
4. Check for encryption on bank websites. Look for a small lock icon somewhere on your browser, and URLs that begin with “https:” This means the site is secured and your data is encrypted.
5. Don’t respond to emails that claim to be from your bank (or any other company) requesting your account details. No bank is ever likely to approach you this way to ask for personal information
6. Make sure your security software is up-to-date, regardless of what if you are using a computer or mobile device. These updates come our for a reason, so they can help reduce the number of security holes in your systems.
7. Use strong passwords for all your accounts. Create passwords that can’t be easily guessed by a human or computer. This typically means a password with 8 or more characters, including letters, numbers and symbols. It is also advisable to use different user IDs and passwords for your financial accounts and for any other sites you use online.
8. Never use any of your Social Security number (or any other sensitive info, like a credit card number) as a password, user ID or personal identification number. This is one of the first things a hacker will try to use to get into your account if they somehow get access to this information.
9. Change your passwords and PIN number frequently. Though this may seem like overkill, changing your login details every couple of months helps you ensure your information stays better protected from hacks and makes you more of a moving target to get.
10. Be careful of what you post on social media. This may sound silly, but by posting personal information about yourself on your social tools can give criminals easy access to find more information about you and use it to their advantage.
11. Be aware when using ATM’s (yes, these still are a thing!) Scammers often target an ATM and place a card reader over the card slot so they can copy your card details. This isn’t as easy with chip cards, but they also can have a camera on the machine to access the details required to skim your card. Always check the slot to make sure it has not been tampered with.
12. Monitor your accounts. Regularly check in on your accounts to ensure all transactions are your own. If you find fraudulent or suspicious activity, immediately report it to your bank and they will put a hold on your card/take measures to secure your account and typically will cover your loss.
13. To take it one step further, set up notification alerts. Many banks offer text or email notifications to alert customers to certain activities on their account.
14. Sign out when you finish with online banking. This may sound easy, but you should always log out of your online banking session rather than let it expire. This will help reduce the chances of your session being hacked. Most banks will log you out automatically after you are idle for a couple of minutes, but logging out is still a good habit to get in to.