13 December, 2016
Online banking and payment frauds are increasing at an alarming rate. Moreover, with the continuous emergence of ecommerce websites, more and more people are becoming victims of these fraudulent activities. Though online banking offers a lot of convenience, the security risks that come along with it necessitate the users to be extremely cautious while accessing their financial accounts.
Given below are a few tips that can help to avoid banking and payment fraud:
- Enable Two Factor Authentication: The best approach is to use two factor authentication for all your online financial accounts. With this, you will have to enter your login credentials, along with the unique one time password (OTP) sent to your mobile number, to confirm any transaction. Thus, even if someone has your username and password, he would not be able to use them unless he gets the OTP.
- Choose Strong Passwords: Create a strong and hard-to-crack password for your internet banking account. The password should ideally be 6 to 10 characters long and consist of uppercase, lowercase letters, numbers as well as symbols. Also, you should not store your password in your computer system, unless it is properly encrypted.
- Avoid Clicking Through Emails: Be wary of phishing emails that require you to update your account information online. Also, do not click on any links embedded in such emails. They may contain a malicious code that redirects you to a fake website to record your banking credentials. It is safer to directly type in your bank website’s URL in the browser.
- Access Your Accounts Securely: Do not access your financial accounts from open Wi-Fi hotspots. These networks do not use encryption and all the information you share can be easily viewed, accessed or modified by the hackers. Also, the website’s URL should begin with ‘HTTPS’ instead of ‘HTTP’ along with a small padlock icon in the address bar.
- Log Out After Each Session: No matter you are using a personal/public computer system or a smartphone, it a good practice to log out after every online banking session. This will minimize the chances of becoming a victim of session hijacking and cross site scripting attacks. You should also clear the browser cache and history at the end of each session.
We, at Centex Technologies, offer comprehensive internet security solutions across Central Texas. For more tips on preventing online banking and payment fraud, you can call us at (855) 375 – 9654.