Safe Online Banking

Finance expert Maribel Aber joins Better to discuss the key points of safe and secure online banking.

Safe Online Banking Better Audra Lowe: In today’s Your Money these days we pretty much do everything on the internet but when it comes to online banking just how safe is it. Maribel Aber Better’s financing career experts here and she’s going to talk about some of the pros and the cons when it does come to doing her finances online. Good to have you back Maribel. Maribel Aber: Great to be here. Audra Lowe: Yeah we always talk about this. You use the computer for every single thing and you don’t really. I mean you think about internet safety but when it comes to doing your banking online is it safe. Should we really be watching out more to more now than we did before? Maribel Aber: Well you know you and I always talk about we should be building a financial future, what can we be doing, paying your bills on time and I’ll get to our point, you’re paying your bills on time is so important because it helps push your credit score and it also helps you get best long rates right? But you’re right you know we’re all really busy, what can we do and online banking has become very popular. I mean in fact I was looking at a survey from 2006 by few internet American life project and just back then 63 million Americans were actually using some form of online banking but people should be aware there are some dangers and there are also steps that we’ll talk about today to help you know prevent. Audra Lowe: And there’s a lot of fraud out there too and its hard because a lot of the emails that you get even the websites that you go to they look so legitimate. It’s hard to tell the difference between to two so how do you know. Maribel Aber: Well here’s the first thing, right there you want to make sure that you understand which website you’re visiting number one, another thing is you want to look to see what emails you’re actually opening up and what your responding to that’s the key I mean you touched on it right there one common tactic is called phishing and what they do is they come up with this phony website and it looks just like any website you think it is. Audra Lowe: Most very legitimate. Maribel Aber: Very legitimate, logo, text and maybe one letter you know you type incorrectly boom they’re promptings you to ask for your or load in your information and all of a sudden they have all your information. Audra Lowe: The tough thing is because I got those emails before. You have to really stop, pay attention and most people don’t have the time to do that and its too tough to tell whether it’s the real thing or not. Maribel Aber: Take the time. I know there is so many emails you should get in your in mail box but I mean you know back in when I was end of the job we had a stock plan administrator switch okay and we got this new note I think hundreds of employees got this new note saying okay type in your information. It was a phishing attempt. Audra Lowe: So now for people out there that don’t know what’s the difference between phishing and having a virus on your computer? Maribel Aber: Well they act very similarly, so you know we talked about phishing being the phony website and the email communications have happened. Audra Lowe: Right. Maribel Aber: The viruses what happens there is that it actually imbeds your computer and it captures what you’re typing so literally you’re typing on your computer you go to your website and you enter your information boom, again, it’s taking all the information you know if they need to access your financial information. Audra Lowe: Still pretty scary too but in terms of the tips that you have for us one of them it seems obvious but if you need to do it is according to the FDIC verify the legitimacy of your bank. It got into that point now we have to do that? Maribel Aber: You do and what if things are quite simply type in the actual website address in your web browser don’t take any short cuts very easy because sometimes you can’t see it with the messaging. The other thing is you know we live in today’s age of facebook, twitter, blogging we’re putting all kinds of personal information out there if everybody see your birthday your anniversary dates to your pets name we’re giving enough information for cyber thieves to get in to your account by just knowing that if you’re using it as a password. Audra Lowe: So, so annoying but the we have to pay attention to it thank you so much Maribel. Maribel Aber: Thank you. Audra Lowe: Alright if you have questions for Maribel you could email her at AskMaribel@BetterTV.com.