Online Banking - Beware!

It’s in the news everyday, and by now most people understand the inherent risks of not only banking in general, but banking online. The convenience of the internet is great–just try and remember back a few years when you actually had to go to a library to find out anything you wanted to find out, when you had to go to the bookstore to buy books, and when you actually had to visit a bank to transfer money from your checking to your saving’s account or send a check to pay a bill. Those days are pretty much gone, if you want them to be. But protecting yourself from not only fraud, phishers and scammers, but from yourself will save you a lot of headache down the line.

Identity theft is on the rise–and unless some magic pill falls out of the sky, will continue to rise. And that means you need to make sure that you’re protecting yourself as best you can.

But just because there are plenty of bad people out there trying to take your hard-earned money, credit status, and general reputation away, you shouldn’t shun convenience–you should just take the right precautions.

Financial institutions know all about fraudsters, phishers, and identity thieves. Probably a great deal more than you do, unless you’re in the fraud business. But the business of defrauding people is too lucrative a business for the crooks to simply close up shop and go away. And when many, if not most, fraudsters and identity thieves live in countries outside of our reach, prosecuting and preventing identity theft becomes that much more difficult.

If you’ve received emails from someone asking for personal information such as your credit card number, bank account, or your password information, you’ve been targeted by a phisher. Phishing normally comes to you as an email asking for information that will gain access for the phisher to your personal financial information. Phishers have become much more sophisticated over the past few years, copying logos and legitimate emails from companies such as PayPal, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Citibank, and a host of other financial institutions to give the appearance of being from one of the actual companies. These companies will never ask you for your personal information, and you should never provide it over email. If in fact you receive such an email, contact your financial institution immediately.

While identity thieves have a great many resources and tools at their fingertips, one of the easiest ways for them to steal your identity is using automated programs that can figure out your passwords and usernames. To prevent this from happening, or at least to make sure you’re doing your due diligence to make it more difficult for them to access your confidential financial information, make sure you are using usernames and passwords that not only include numbers and letters, but that are longer–and also that have no relevance to your other personal data–meaning don’t use your birthday or your social security number, because those are the first numbers phishers will likely use to try to gain access to your accounts.

Update your spyware programs. And make sure you’re deleting cookies from your internet browser as well. ‘Cleaning’ up your computer will help prevent spyware and other malicious programs from planting themselves onto your computer and gathering information you don’t want them to gather. Playing it safe 100% of the time is what’s going to give you that leg up on phishers, scammers, and identity thieves, but prevention is only good if you keep your data safe round the clock, 24/7, 365 days a year.