Using online services and tools to aid in managing your personal finances can save you time and money.  The Internet allows you to easily perform activities such as paying bills, viewing statements, receiving notifications and conducting transactions.  Despite the added conveniences, however, transmitting sensitive personal information by way of the Internet can lead to a compromise in security and privacy.  Fortunately, protecting your information amounts to using common sense and being well informed of the precautions you should take.  Use the advice provided within this article to establish some guidelines to follow when conducting online activities that involve your sensitive financial information.

Usernames and Passwords

Typically, the first step to accessing financial tools and services online is to create a username and a password.  Although it may be convenient to create usernames and passwords that are easy to remember, it certainly is not secure.  Usernames and passwords should not be merely difficult to guess, they should be essentially impossible to guess.  Specifically, do not use dictionary words or proper names; rather use a mixed combination of all of the following: lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers and symbols.  Also, your usernames and passwords should be as long as the maximum allowable length.

Usernames and passwords are a major obstacle that a would-be perpetrator has to overcome before having access to your sensitive information.  Therefore, in addition to making your usernames and passwords cryptic, there are several other precautions you should take.  First, change your usernames and passwords frequently, once per year at the very least.  Second, do not use the same password to access different sites.  Third, if you need to have a list of usernames and passwords in case you were to forget one, store such a list securely.

Web Sites

If you are accessing a web site that contains or asks for your financial information, you should first ensure that the site is secure.  There are several quick ways to check a site’s security status.  First, be sure that you are logging into the site with a username and password before seeing or giving any sensitive information.  Second, confirm that the site is using a secure protocol.  Check the address bar in your web browser to see if the web site address is prefixed by ‘https’, as opposed to just ‘http’.  The ‘https’ prefix indicates that the site is using a secure protocol.  Next, look towards the bottom of your browser window for either a key icon or padlock icon.  The key or padlock icon changes to reflect the secure status of the site.  An unbroken key or a locked padlock indicates that the site is secure. Further, double-clicking the key or padlock icon will retrieve detailed information pertaining to the security of the site.

In addition to ensuring that a site is secure, you should check for indications that the site has legitimate intentions.  First, look for and read the site’s privacy policy.  The privacy policy will disclose any intentions the site has for using your personal information, such as providing it to third parties.  Second, look for a privacy symbol posted on the site that displays the site’s commitment to privacy and good business.  Two of the more common symbols are TRUSTe and BBBOnline.  If present, clicking on the symbol will reveal further information about the site and the associated company or organization it represents.

Email

Using email to transmit sensitive information is not a good idea.  Unless you are manually implementing additional security, such as encrypting your messages, email is not secure at all, even if the information is contained within an attachment.  At the very least you should never include account numbers, your social security number or any other highly sensitive personal information in email.  Likewise, you should be weary of any email that asks you to provide sensitive information or visit an unfamiliar website and provide sensitive information through it.  In fact, in these cases you are most likely witnessing what is known as phishing.  Phishing refers to a scenario where, by way of an electronic communication, a fraudulent party with malicious intent poses as a trustworthy source with hopes to persuade you into providing sensitive information.  In any case, it is right to be skeptical of emails requesting sensitive information, and adhering to such requests is probably not worth the risk.

Financial institutions are required by the federal government to protect sensitive client information.  Therefore, if you receive an email from a financial institution that contains your private information, you should contact the sender to express your concern for the security of your information and request that the sender discontinue sending such emails.

Conclusion

The internet can be a very useful tool when working with your personal finances- saving you both time and money.  There are many websites dedicated to helping you.  Unfortunately, and unsuspectingly to you, some may be trying to obtain your personal information in a less-than-secure manner or for illicit purposes.  With a little effort and common sense, you can benefit from the internet while also protecting your financial information and identity.

Written by CitrinGroup Staff 02/02/06