Tag Archives: internet

Online Banking Safety

The Internet can be terrifying.  It’s often frightening how your information travels so quickly.  For example, last week I traveled to Ohio.  And ever since I’ve been receiving emails full of political ads for the Ohio Senate race.  How does that even happen?  I wasn’t receiving Ohio political ads before my trip, but now I am.  How do they know?!?!?!

But the one area where I generally don’t fear my information being snagged up by the wrong party is with my banking information.  Which probably sounds strange to many.  For years I’ve been trying to convince my Dad to do his income tax online, but he just doesn’t see it as safe.  I can’t convince him otherwise. But I’ve been doing my taxes and all of my banking online for many years.  The reality is that banks use high level encryption in addition to multifactor authentication.  When I’m logging into a bank account, it’s nearly as difficult as logging into LionPath (but not near as difficult as Department of Education systems).  If it is that hard for me to get in, with all the proper info at hand, how hard would it be for an outsider?  And if worse comes to worst, my money is protected by the FDIC.

You do have to be careful with the Internet though.  When doing banking online, you should always make sure you are working through a website that starts with HTTPS rather than just HTTP.  That S stands for secure, and that is important.  Make sure you change your passwords now and then.  Use passwords that are complicated (easy for you to remember, but hard for others to guess).  And always watch out for phishing emails and texts.  If you get an email that looks like it came from your bank, don’t just click on the link in the email.  Log into the bank website on your own, just to be safe.  If it’s a real message, you’ll find it on the bank’s website.  And set up alerts with your bank.  If I have a large or unusual transaction my bank sends me a text message about it.  They let me confirm that it was me, or send the red flag that my account has been compromised.  It’s a good idea to review your financial accounts online every few days.  That way if something is weird, you’ll see it and be able to notify the bank right away, without waiting for the next monthly statement.

The Internet can be a scary place.  But I’m pretty confident that it is safe to bank online.  Your mileage may vary.  This is definitely a personal decision.  But it’s one that I feel ok about.

 

Shopping: How to Learn from Others’ Mistakes

A week ago my cable modem died.  No internet in my home.  And boy, oh, boy do you not realize how much you use the internet until you’re not able!  No streaming TV (because I still don’t have cable).  No wi-fi on my tablet to read the morning news.  No streaming music.  It wasn’t that many years ago that I didn’t have a home wi-fi network, but I sure am dependent now!  But that’s not what this post is about.

Cable modem

This post is about my journey to a new cable modem.  After work on the evening that my modem died, I spent some quality time at the local big box electronics store.  I picked out three modems in my price range that met my specifications.  The prices were all within about $20 of each other.  But then I sat down on the floor and consulted my smartphone (my only remaining source of internet).  Several blue shirted employees walked by without ever saying the words “May I help you.”  But that’s a different tale.  I was in my own world anyway.  I looked at reviews for the three modems I had picked out.  And it very quickly became clear that one of the modems was better than the other two.  Luckily for me, it was the least expensive one.

The internet makes it very easy for us to learn from the mistakes of other people.  If a product is no good, someone has probably written about it.  If a product is great, someone has likely written that too.  It’s all out there for us to see.  And it’s definitely best if you can look at a lot of reviews, to see if there are recurring themes.  There will be anomalies that stand out as being different from the norm.  But the more good reviews, the better the chance you’re getting a good product.

After a couple of days of watching old-fashioned DVDs for entertainment, we finally had enough ambition to hook up the new modem.  And it worked like a charm.  No problems.  No need to even interact with the cable company supplying our internet.  And this is exactly what I expected after reading the reviews online.

There’s a world of information at our fingertips.  It’s definitely worth doing a little investigating before making a purchase.  It may save you a lot of grief….and the need to write a negative review.

Phishing (a classic tip from 10/14/2013)

I recently came across this article about how a scammer posing as Sallie Mae was trying to steal private information by claiming the federal government was offering student loan forgiveness during the government shutdown.  This reminded me that phishing is alive and well in the world, and is something we should all be thinking about.

Imagine it’s 1996.  You are enjoying the Internet through America Online when an instant message pops up.  Someone masquerading as an AOL employee asks you to verify your password.  This was the birth of the Internet scam called phishing.

From its early start as attempted AOL password harvesting (thus the “ph” replacing the “f” in the word fishing) scam, phishing has evolved into the practice of sending out e-mails that appear to be from banks or other reputable organizations with the intent of luring the recipient to reveal sensitive information such as Social Security number, usernames, passwords, credit card information or bank account details.

The scam artists who run phishing schemes are quite clever.  They have made an art form out of creating e-mails and web sites so like those of the organizations they are impersonating that it can be near impossible to tell the difference.  Usually they are asking for the intended victim to “update” or “validate” their account information.  Often they will try to incite fear with threats such as “your account will be canceled” if you don’t provide the requested information.  The phishing e-mail then provides a link to a web site where the intended victim will be asked to provide the private information the phisher seeks.

You can learn to identify phishing scams by looking for these clues:

  • Watch for address spoofs.  The original e-mail may appear to be from a legitimate address, such as eBay.com, but this is really just concealing the scammer’s actual address.  The enclosed link will lead to a look-alike web site at a similar but fake address such as eBayverifysite.com.
  • Phishing e-mails almost always link to a web site that is not secure.  It’s very simple for you to tell the difference between a secure and a non-secure site.  A secure site will always start with “https://”.  A non-secure site lacks the “s” for secure and will start with “http://.”
  • A genuine e-mail from a financial institution you work with will likely include your name or a partial account number.  A phishing e-mail will likely start with a more generic “Dear Customer.”
  • Phishing e-mails almost always use scare tactics such as threat of account cancellation.

You can further protect yourself from phishing by doing the following:

  • If you get an e-mail asking for personal information, do not click on the link in the message.  If you are concerned that it may be a legitimate request from a company you work with, you should go to that company’s web site directly to confirm your account information there.
  • Do not e-mail personal or financial information.  E-mail is not secure, so you should only send confidential information through secure sites.
  • Regularly review your bank account and credit card statements to ensure that all transactions were initiated by you.
  • Install anti-virus software on your computer and keep it updated.  Some phishing e-mails will contain software to track your Internet activities without your knowledge.  Anti-virus software and firewalls can protect you from this.
  • Always be cautious about opening attachments in e-mails—even from people you know.
  • If you receive an e-mail you are certain is phishing, you should report it to the Anti-Phishing Working Group at http://www.antiphishing.org.

If you have given out personal information, here is what you should do to limit the damage:

  • Report the theft of your information to the holder of your account as soon as possible.  This will limit your liability.
  • Cancel the account and open a new one as soon as possible.
  • Monitor the stolen account for fraudulent use.
  • If you have downloaded a virus, you should install or update anti-virus software and run a full scan.
  • If you have given out personal identification information such as your Social Security number, you could be a target for identity theft.  You should contact the three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) to place a fraud alert and a victim’s statement in your file.  You should regularly monitor your credit reports to watch for any fraudulent activity.

The Internet is a powerful tool.  It has drastically changed the way we do just about everything.  But the Internet is also a dangerous place.  It is important for us to keep this at the forefront of our minds and exercise caution in your Internet use.