With online security in the news again we feel that is is important to remind our members again about using strong passwords and security questions when performing transactions online. In the past we have reminded our members to use strong passwords that fraudsters will not be able to guess. This advice would have helped save an RBC customer some headache.
A Royal bank customer was exposed when her email account was hacked. After the victim sent an e-transfer to a friend with a very weak security password, fraudsters were able to easily guess the answer to the security question and intercept the funds intended for her friend. In this case RBC claimed the victim was not maintaining proper password and online security and that exposed her to fraudsters. The loss they felt, was her problem alone.
The Energy CU believes in education as a very important part of keeping our members safe. We add security updates and bulletins to our Member Security section of the blog often and we offer up to date log in security to our online and telephone banking for our members. Convenience is important, but so is security. So why not take a moment to do a little bit of housekeeping with your own e-transfer recipient list. Are your security questions secure? The victim in the story above use a security question that was far to easy to guess”Who is my favourite Beatle?” This gave fraudsters an immediate 1 in 4 chance of guessing the answer. Are your questions similar? Take a moment now to get secure! Remember if your email has been hacked fraudsters have access to a lot of personal information that that you may be using for your security questions. Names of pets or grandchildren and other easily identifiable information is not a good choice for your security questions and passwords.
Also, it would be prudent for you to visit a site called www.haveibeenpwned.com, a website that tracks data breaches and reports almost eight billion occasions when personal accounts have been exposed. Once a fraudster has your email and if your emails passwords are just as easy to guess, you are leaving yourself open to fraudsters. Strong passwords are your key to online safety. A strong lock on your door will only work if the door is closed.
Stay safe and if you have questions about your online security check out our Member Security section of the blog.
