Egg Money Manager and fraud

pioneer31

Am I right in thinking that a tool like EMM could help prevent fraud?

I saw a scary programme the other night about hackers and how they can install spyware keystoke loggers onto your pc.

As most of my passwords are keyed in automatically from an encrypted file on my machine with EMM, isn't that a preventative measure?

UKays_Finest

pioneer31 wrote:

As most of my passwords are keyed in automatically from an encrypted file on my machine with EMM, isn't that a preventative measure?

Yes, this is a preventative measure, although more can be and should be done.

You can do more to protect your identity and personal details from hackers by having a firewall installed (ZoneAlarm do a very good free one - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp).
This will in effect, warn you if any program, be it genuine or rogue (i.e. keyloggers) tries to communicate and send out any information over the internet.

Also, I would advise using various Anti-Spyware programs on your system which scan for such things as keyloggers, spyware and other programs which put passwords, credit card numbers, and other vulnerable data at risk online.

A very good free one is Spybot - Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

Another program is Ad-aware Personal Edition, which is also free - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

A third program is Microsoft Anti-Spyware (also free), which does the same job as the above two programs - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

I recommend using a firewall and both antispyware programs above (or even all three if you really want peace of mind) as each program has different anti-spyware definitions which may pick something up that the other programs do not.

These should be adequate measures to prevent identity theft from your computer via the internet.

Hope that helps.

Amba_Gambla

but by putting all your accounts in one place, does that not mean if they hack one account, they've hacked the lot?? That's what worried me, so I only added a credit card in order to get my £15 free welcome bonus!

fatboyonadiet

Amba_Gambla wrote:

but by putting all your accounts in one place, does that not mean if they hack one account, they've hacked the lot?? That's what worried me, so I only added a credit card in order to get my £15 free welcome bonus!

No, the passwords are stored on that machine only, hence if I try to log into EMM at work (or any other PC) it doesn't give me any of the other accounts as all the details are stored at home.

Woby_Tide

don't some banks specifically exclude fraud cover if the accounts are found to be setup with EMM

so it's a trade off with security of EMM versus risk of being hacked, if EMM does it's job, then the banks not offering protection is a null point, if it does get hacked you lose on both sides though, no bank protection and a money manager that doesn't work!

Rafter

I guess if someone hacks into your pc via the internet and somehow manages to break the encryption on the EMM file stored on your pc there is a potential risk.

I agree with pioneer though. It seems more likely they would be able to install a key logger and see you entering details than cracking a very well encoded money manager file.

I'm not an Egg MM user, but am a bit nervous about security on my Egg card accounts. Reason being that you enter full information rather than being asked for certain letters of your password.

I use the first direct money manager which does the job and only asks you partial password info and would be harder to crack than individual account logons in my view.

Remember kids, no system whether it is internet banks, cards, cheques, pins, signatures or even fingerprints is 100% secure so don't lose too much sleep as long as you have good virus software, don't write your pin down, shred documents with lots of account details on and keep your cards safe.

R.

R.