Please help me keep safe when internet banking

shellyd_3

Hi, I am not technical at all and use internet banking, I wonder what safety precautions I should be talking to protect my details. I use windows XP and Internet Explore, before I go to my bank account I run C Cleaner AVG and AVG spy ware, I also have Zone Alarm. (all recommended form this board) also used to have Spybot but had to uninstall is because of problems with the new version.
Do you think this is enough or should I be doing something else.

Thanks for any help.

Shellyd

Browntoa

download and run

www.superantispyware.com

the blue button for the free version

install and update it, then do a full scan to make sure your Pc is clean , fixing anything it finds

then if you feel safer doing it, before you do internet banking run superantispyare , update it first and then do a quick scan

the software will remove any keyloggers/trojans it finds, which are the normal way of stealing passwords

Aliktren

I think you have enough there to be honest, you can go to extreme lengths

Always make sure that you are actually navigating to the correct banking site, not a spoof one, best to add it as a favorite/bookmark

Always make sure the little padlock icon is showing in the staus bar, this should indicate your session is SSL encrypted (which is a good thing!)

Other than that, regular scans with AV and Antispyware will leave you pretty safe.

BritBrat

You are more likely to get caught by fishing Emails.

This is what I do, I use an old Freeserve account for online banking and anything before the @ sign is OK for it to work.

So say my email address is [noparse]fred@fredsplace.freeserve.co.uk[/noparse] and I bank with LLoyds the Email I would give them would be [noparse]LLoyds@fredsplace.freeserve.co.uk[/noparse] you can do the same thing with many Email services and I know for sure it works with Orange PAYG.

So any Emails that look like they are from bank I look at the Emaill address and if it's not the one I used and they would be the only ones using that Email I know it is not from the bank and I delete it.

nomoneytoday

If the site name starts https: then you are pretty safe. If the criminals were clever enough to hack that far, the odds on them going for a personal account are minimal, when there are accounts will millions in them for the same effort.

Phishing and stealing passwords is closer to home...

Aliktren

ahh yes, passwords, good point, if you are asked to create a password, make sure it's something really hard with letters, numbers, uppercase lowercase, that way it' smuch harder to conduct a brute force attack on the password to gain access

culpepper

dont keep your password on your pc. If the bank site comes up with 'remember this password?' (in the browser),say never or no or whatever the negative button is on your browser. That way it cant be recorded on the pc anywhere and it wont be something that could be fished out by a remote computer gaining access to yours.

esuhl

A good way to create a difficult-to-guess password is to use the initial letters of a phrase: "Martin Lewis' the Money Saving Expert Saved Me £100" could be used to remember the password MLtMSEsm£100... you get the idea.

You're better off manually typing in banking URLs, rather than clicking links in email. Also, remember that email is (nearly always) unencrypted. ANYTHING you type in an email could be intercepted and read by a third party.

I would also recommend using Firefox with the NoScript add-on, rather than Internet Explorer. Not only does Firefox not use ActiveX, but by using NoScript you can prevent cross-site scripting and only allow scripts for the domains that you need (i.e. allow barclays.com, but not phishingsite.com). You can download it here: http://noscript.net/

Oh, and SpywareBlaster is great too. It simply blocks know spyware/malware sites without slowing down your PC. More info here: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

bookduck

if you have a laptop and you use it in hotels or use wifi in unprotected areas then you should be vigilant.

Someone at work used a hotel's room internet and got hacked. they put a keystroke copier on his pc that seemed only gather ie details, and a shed load a back doors and email sender so that they can get to his keyloged files. They even disabled his virus checker.

The above I've only ever seen once in a few decades. The big problem is by people download any of the illegal/pirate/suspicious programs & zips with out knowing what they are doing.

superscaper

And remember this is all in context, you're far more likely to be the victim of fraud from someone skimming your card in a shop etc than someone hacking your PC. At least of the people I know personally that have had money stolen/been defrauded it was nothing to do with their internet transactions or online banking. It was all "real world" scams.

BritBrat

bookduck wrote: »

Someone at work used a hotel's room internet and got hacked. they put a keystroke copier on his pc that seemed only gather ie details, and a shed load a back doors and email sender so that they can get to his keyloged files. They even disabled his virus checker.

I use a macro for my logins and that way even a keyloger would be no good.

And the macro it password protected.

But I agree with superscaper real life is more a risk, that is why I have got a chip and signature card for normall shopping use and a chip and pin for hole in the wall use.

I have been buying on the net for years and online banking even longer and never had a problem, you just have to stop and think and never click any link you did not request yourself.

I also click the contact me on any new website I may buy something from, if they do not have a real address and telephone number I do not use them, in the past I have even phoned up to check they can be contacted before using the site.

I do use fairly strong passwords and never use the same one on more than one site.

Examples of passwords I would use:

99$8Krh563
5J48z2*#94
39##5z438H