Make Sure Your Banking Online Safety

Safety Of Banking Online

About 80% of us either bank or pay bills online, so we must think that it is safe... right. Nothing you do online is 100% safe. You are sending your personal information into the internet cloud. If we understand how online security works and take necessary precautions, banking can be very safe.

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The first thing to do is make sure that the device you are using, PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone, has all the security updates installed. Use some type of internet security software and keep it up to date.

If you have home Wi-Fi make sure that you have changed the default administrator password and that you turned on the latest Wi-Fi security. I would also turn off the broadcast, so that your Wi-Fi does not appear when someone is searching for hot spots.

Now that you are all secure what about your bank, here are some things to look for:

• Make sure that your bank is FDIC insured, check the FDIC website for current information.
• When going to your bank's web site make sure that you see "HTTPS" in the address bar. This encrypts the data that you send.
• 128-bit encryption should be used when transmitting data, your bank's web site should tell you what they use.
• When setting up a password use upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols, they all should be random and the longer the better. Now might be a good time to look into a password manager to keep track of all your passwords.
• Some banks use a second authentication method, when logging in you will see a picture that you picked out during your account setup, if you don't see this picture don't log in.
• Never click a link in an email to go to your bank, the email could have come from someone trying to get your log in information. Always type the bank's address in yourself or go to a bookmark that you created.

When using your smartphone or tablet for banking it is best to download the app from the bank's web site, it will link you to the proper app. These apps use encryption when transmitting your data.

Your smartphone and tablet now has a wealth of your personal and banking information in it so don't lose it and if you do make sure that you have some type of software that will wipe your data.

So after reading this article something should have become very clear-Banking safely online starts with you!