Is Banking Online As Safe As The Vault?

By: Michael Russell
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:17:17
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher |

Rating:

 

With technology changing as fast as the weather, would it not be nice to know that your hard earned money is safe and secure. In order to properly insure your online banking accounts and protect it from any watching eye, you need to know how to protect yourself. None of these is difficult however; in time, you will know what to look for so you can sleep better at night. You do not need to do each one of these but the more the better.

The first is perhaps the most popular way to steal your information. Its called phishing and people fall for it all the time. It comes in the style of a convincing email trying to mislead you. They try to convince you that they are the bank or a financial institution. They use fear in most cases to get you to reveal precious information or even a link to a site that looks like your bank. They may ask for passwords of account numbers, anything that could prove useful as the phishers try to gain access to you accounts. The first rule is, never give your password out to anyone. The bank will not even ask you for it. If someone does, run. Stay away from emails or anyone who tries to get your passwords from you.

Speaking of passwords, they are one of the best tools to use to protect your account. Some people use popular passwords like God or password. If your password is PASSWORD, that is easy to guess. You are more protected if you use characters and numbers. Try not to have something easy, for example, the road you live on followed by the year you were born. Center1964 is predictable since anyone can search online to find that information. The most secure passwords are ones that contain numbers and characters as well as special characters. Is you use a @ symbol and a # sign these are almost impossible to break. You can further strengthen your password by capitalizing some characters. This could make it more difficult to remember but you will not have to worry about some person on the other side of the world trying to break in.

If you are about to enter your password or other sensitive information, get in the habit of looking at the website address. Most sites have an http in front of them. That stands for hypertext transfer protocol. A more secure protocol is https that is the secure hypertext transfer protocol. Even if you do not understand the jargon, it is much safer. However, your Internet browser could limit that safeguard if it is out of date. Most browsers use 128-bit encryption. If you update your browser, do your banking on https sites you will be on your way to safe guarding your personal information.

The last two points I want to commit on is where to do your banking and firewall/antivirus programs. If you install a firewall and an antivirus program, you be even safer from attacks. Buy a reputable program for each and make sure to look for updates on a monthly basis. Even if hackers get smarter and find a way around those safeguards, these programs will be updated to deter any future attack. Since your computer contains all of these updates, does it not make sense to do your banking with your own computer? Going to Internet cafes and using their computers is not nearly as safe. You could go for years completely disobeying any of these recommendations and be fine but you are taking a chance with no possibility of reward. If you use your own computer you KNOW the safeguards that are in place, why take a chance?

Of course, there are more ideas if you want to go even further. Most of the above ideas take upfront time but most programs will install updates automatically so you do not ever have to think about it again.

Article source: Expert Articles