5 golden rules for staying safe online
Were you aware that there were 40,914 reported cases of online fraud in the first half of 2020, 37% more than a year before? Online scams happen every year, but 2020 was especially lucrative for fraudsters - many people turned to shopping online with the start of the pandemic, including people who had never done it before.
Although the internet is undoubtedly an amazing invention, it does not come without its risks.
Your bank account providers work hard to keep your money safe, but it’s important that you too take the necessary precautions and minimize the risk of online fraud.
In honour of Safer Internet Day, we’ve decided to share 5 things you can do to stay safe online and protect your personal information:
Create strong passwords - A lot of sites recommend that you create a unique, strong password, but many of us choose to ignore this advice and instead choose to use dates of birth or children’s names. Weak passwords are a recipe for disaster, to maximise your account security, choose a unique, unexpected combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, and consider even adding special characters and numbers.
Don’t respond to suspicious emails - We’ve all received at least one in our life; they often appear to be from credible sources, such as couriers or banks. These phishing emails are designed for you to take the bait and give away bank details. What gives them away is often the bad grammar and a poorly designed email template. If you’re unsure about an email, always ring the company that it’s sent from and remember: legitimate companies would never ask for your sensitive information!
Check the website is genuine and secure - There are a few ways you can determine whether or not a website selling a service or product is genuine: locate their company number and perform a search on companies house, scan through reviews to find out what other people think about the company, search for the company on social media, if they are a credible business it’s likely they’ll have a presence on social. Remember, if it appears sketchy, refrain from giving away your personal information.
Make good use of your bank’s mobile app - Nowadays, all banks have their own mobile apps. Apart from being extremely useful for checking your account balance, setting up budgets and making payments, most of the apps also have the option to activate spending notifications. This means that whenever there’s a transaction, your bank notifies you through the app. This is incredibly helpful if you get a notification for something that you didn’t buy - you can react immediately and block your card!
Careful what you click - As tempting as it may seem to click on a pop up or advertisement for something you are genuinely interested in, you mustn’t. By clicking on a link or going to a website, in the background you could be downloading a nasty software that intends on hacking your computer and scraping your personal information.
What should you take away from this blog? Do not share information with people you don’t know and bear in mind that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
