Tag: Online Banking

Sign Up for Activity Alerts Everywhere You Can

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Receiving and paying your bills online instead of through postal mail is a good idea. It’s not only convenient, but it also helps fight identity theft and other types of fraud (the fewer pieces of paper floating around in the world with your personal information on them, the better).

But your financial accounts may offer online features you’re not taking advantage of just yet. Most credit card providers and deposit institutions (i.e. credit unions and banks) that offer online access also offer alerts that let you know when activity has occurred on your account. Alerts can be an important tool in detecting unusual transactions or changes as early as possible.

Every financial provider is different, but many will offer alerts for new charges or withdrawals. Other options may include notifications for a change of address, phone number, email address or other contact information. Remember that identity thieves will sometimes attempt to change these details in an existing account in order to hide their activities from the victim. If you get an alert that your address has been changed (and you’re not the one who did it), it’s time to contact that institution and report the suspicious activity.

Having a dedicated computer for online banking

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Clipart of bills and coins
Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a great idea that doesn’t get talked about enough: having a computer you use only for online banking and other financial activities, and a different computer for games, music and general Internet usage.

It seems like an expensive route to have two separate computers, but think about it—your financial machine only has to be just powerful enough to handle an operating system, an Internet connection and a web browser. You don’t need massive amounts of RAM or a great (or even particularly good) video card. You could probably even find a used laptop running Windows XP (if you’re a PC user; however I would not recommend Windows Vista) if you poke around. Install your antivirus software and Mozilla Firefox with the NoScript plugin, and you’re ready to go. I would also recommend setting up a separate email address for anything related to finances, and only check it with your financial computer.

What this does is keeps your financial activities separate from everything else; you’re not likely to encounter malware by logging in to your credit card providers or financial institution’s website. In the meantime, if you run into malware trouble on your “fun” computer while mucking about on the Intertubes, the damage will be limited. Your banking passwords won’t get snagged by a keylogger you picked up on an infected website, even if your Facebook password does.

Of course, buying a separate computer is going to cost money whether you go new or used, and in any case you have to keep your security software up-to-date on both machines. It’s not an option for everyone. However, if you can swing a few hundred bucks for a dedicated banking computer and some good security software, it’s just one more layer of protection.

Not even the FBI Director is above falling for a phishing scam

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I spend a lot of time on this site repeating (explicitly or implicitly) these two ideas:

  1. You can take steps to vastly reduce your chances of becoming a victim of fraud or identity theft
  2. That said, nobody is ever 100% safe, and nobody is “too smart” to walk right into a scam

The following is an excerpt from a recent speech by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III:

Most of us assume we will not be targets of cyber crime. We are not as careful as we know we should be.  Let me give you an example.

Not long ago, the head one of our nation’s domestic agencies received an e-mail purporting to be from his bank. It looked perfectly legitimate, and asked him to verify some information. He started to follow the instructions, but then realized this might not be such a good idea.

It turned out that he was just a few clicks away from falling into a classic Internet “phishing” scam—“phishing” with a “P-H.” This is someone who spends a good deal of his professional life warning others about the perils of cyber crime. Yet he barely caught himself in time.

He definitely should have known better. I can say this with certainty, because it was me.

After changing all our passwords, I tried to pass the incident off to my wife as a “teachable moment.” To which she replied: “It is not my teachable moment. However, it is our money. No more Internet banking for you!”

If I didn’t dislike vapid clichés like “it really makes you think” so much, I’d probably say that right now. I mean, it would be funny (but not ha-ha funny) enough if someone like myself fell for a phishing email, but the FBI Director?

I think the Soup Nazi-esque “no online banking for you!” response is extreme, although I can see how a high-profile figure like Mueller could have his reasons beyond just his own personal finances for going offline—namely, his very credibility.

For the rest of us, though, online banking and bill payment is still very safe, as long as you’re informed when it comes to the dangers. If you get an email that appears to be from a financial institution, don’t click on any links within that message. Go directly to that bank, credit union or credit card company’s website by typing the URL manually, or by running a search on Google, and log in from there. Of course, if it’s from an institution you don’t even have a relationship with, you’re pretty safe in assuming it’s phony.

The full text of Mueller’s speech is an interesting read, if you have a few minutes, by the way.