Online Banking Security. Make sure that your online banking process is secure. Here are several steps that you can follow to ensure complete protection. First of all you should verify that the website login process is SSL (Secure Socket Layer) secured. This means that your login, financial and personal information is encrypted before it is sent over the Internet. In other words, the information is encoded before it is sent out and is decoded back after it is received. There are several levels of encryption, but the better is the encryption mechanism, the more secure is your personal and financial information. A good check to make sure that the online banking area of the website is SSL secured is to look at the URL web address and confirm that it starts with “https”, not just “http”.
In order to make sure that your online banking process is secure, you should also check if the bank’s website is verified by some type of an Internet security company. For example, many websites are verified by VeriSign. What this means is that the security company reviewed the encryption and other security mechanisms and approved them as satisfactory. VeriSign is one of the leaders in the Internet security industry, but there are other companies that are used for the verification processes. You should always check that the company that did the verification is a trustworthy company. Protect your login and password information that you are using to access the member area of the online banking website. Make sure that you and only you know this information. Keep your password and login name in secret and do not tell it to anyone, even to your family members. The reason for this is the fact that even your family members can accidentally tell it to someone or write it down. If you do tell your password or login to someone you trust, make sure that you discuss the online banking security topic with this person. You should also keep your password and login in memory and never write it down on paper or save it on your computer. When you are accessing the member area of the online banking website in a public location (work, library, school, etc.), make sure that you log out after you are done using this website. In case you do forget to log out, someone else may be able to access your banking account and find out your financial and personal information. Also, when you are logging in, you should make sure that no one sees what login name and password you are entering. One last note is to make certain that when you login, you never specify that your login information should be stored on the public computer for later access. If you are in doubt that someone could have gained access to your login information or was able to access your account in some other way, notify your bank and change your login and password immediately. |
