When you bank online, you believe that your account is safe from hackers. Even so, online accounts to customer seem like easy targets: Instead of robbing the bank, criminals can just take the cash with a few keystrokes.
To solve this issues— and protect your money- banks and credit unions implement policies to maintain customer accounts online safe.
Standard measures include using anti-virus protection on bank computers, firewalls, fraud monitoring, and website encryption, which scrambles data so that only its intended recipients can read it. Here are some tips to protect your accounts in online banking.
Change The Passwords Often
It’s really irritating to change the passwords repeatly. You’re probably wondering that it’s bad enough that you have to incorporate a series of numbers, capital letters, and symbols in the password, and now you have to change it all the time? But the truth is having a complex and frequently-changed password will help protect the account from hackers.
If you’re worried about forgetting the password, then you ought consider using a password manager to securely store all of the passwords. With password managers, you won’t have to go through the inconvenience of resetting your password ever again.
Don’t Use Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi has a ton of risks. Not only is it commonly slow, but it sometimes doesn’t offer a secure internet connection. When a hacker taps into public Wi-Fi, they can see everything, including your bank account login.
But, encrypted webpages can save you from the prying eyes of hackers. Ensure to check if your bank’s URL starts with “https://” not “http://” The “s” tells you that the page is secure to use.
Even if a page has encryption, it’s still better to keep away of public Wi-Fi altogether. Using a virtual private network, or using the cellular network to access the internet is far more good when dealing with the online banking. If you really want to play it secure, just access the account from your own home’s Wi-Fi.
Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Most banks will give you the choice to enable two-factor authentication (2FA). While 2FA has its powerful and weaknesses, it still offers you extra protection for the sensitive account information.
When you sign up for 2FA, you’ll particularly receive a text with a one-time password each time you log in to your account. It might seem like an uncomfort to go the extra step, but it’s worth it.
If a hacker attemp logging into your account, you’ll get a text with a code. Once you aware that you didn’t make this request, you can intercept the hacker right away.
Never Open Any Suspicious Emails
Emails that ask for the personal information are known as phishing emails. These emails try to fool you into divulging your bank and credit card data. The emails may look like they come from a legitimate source, but the human on the other end of that message is almost always a hacker.
Just keep in mind that the bank will never ask you for personal information via email or text message. If you ever receive an email or text from a bank or financial institution that seems a bit too nosey, ensure to report it to your bank.
Don’t Use Automatic Login
With automatic login, the browser saves your username and password, permitting you to access the bank account without remembering any of the login information. While that’s convenient and all, it’s not the safest thing to do.
You should never automatic login at all costs, spesifically if you use your smartphone for online banking. What if someone happens to swipe the phone? They won’t even need the username or password to get into your bank account. If you haven’t already, disable this feature on the smartphone and on PC desktop right away.
