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Verifying a Financial Institution's Website...

With more banks and credit unions offering online applications, the issue of verifying a website is becoming more important. It's easy for scammers to set up a website and make it look like it's part of a legitimate financial institution. For each post on a bank or credit union deal, I include the link to the FDIC or NCUA page that provides information on the institution. This information includes the primary website address. Here are the steps if you want to do your own verification:

 

Verifying a FDIC-Insured Bank's Website:

Search for a FDIC-insured bank at FDIC Bank Find. The FDIC entry for the bank will include the bank's primary website address.

Verifying a NCUA-Insured Credit Union's Website:

Search for a NCUA-insured credit union at NCUA's Find a Credit Union. Like the FDIC website, the NCUA will have a page for each credit union that includes the credit union's website address.

Verifying an ASI-Only-Insured Credit Union's Website:

Not all credit unions are federally insured by the NCUA. A small percentage of them only have private ASI insurance. These are still legitimate credit unions which are chartered by their state (The value of ASI insurance is another issue). To find if a website is in fact the website of an ASI-insured credit union, search for the credit union at the ASI database.

Complications

Sometimes the financial institution will have a secondary website that's not listed in the database of the FDIC or NCUA. A smart financial institution will include a link to this secondary website somewhere on its primary website. Notice the link to EmigrantDirect.com at the bottom of Emigrant Bank's primary website, Emigrant.com. If there is no link, you can call or email a bank using information listed at the primary bank's website to see if they can confirm a secondary website address.

Hackers Find New Way To Get Into Online Bank Accounts - "Banking Trojans"



New and nasty banking trojans are on the rise on the Internet and attacking online bank accounts.

The new trojan programs which wait on your hard drive for an opportunity to crack your online banking account are different from traditional "phishing" e-mail scams that try to trick you into typing your login information at fake bank websites.

They're invisible, can steal data multiple ways and require no action by the victim to be launched.

"Phishing doesn't work as well as it used to," says Patrik Runald, security specialist at F-Secure, the Internet security firm. "Banking trojans provide a very effective and direct means for the bad guys to get their hands on the money."

Banking trojans can be gotten by clicking on a viral link to a greeting card or video that arrives in e-mail spam. Or, they can be picked up by clicking to a Web page that's been corrupted by hackers.

F-Secure tallied 59,177 unique banking trojans circulating on the Internet in 2008, up from 15,969 in 2007. The escalation partly underscores how intensively criminal hackers churn out new variants to escape detection by antivirus programs.

Banking trojans "are more advanced and evolving faster than antivirus solutions," says Gunter Ollmann at IBM Internet Security Systems.

The American Bankers Association acknowledges the rise. Doug Johnson, vice president of risk management policy, notes that most U.S. banks try to make certain that online customers log in from their usual computer.

Losses caused from unauthorized transactions aren't known. Banks generally don't disclose them.

A typical banking trojan remains dormant until the customer logs on to a banking website. It then steals usernames and passwords by capturing keystrokes or copying the log-on page after the victim has filled it out.

So-called man-in-the-middle trojans go further. One type makes illicit cash transfers while the victim is legitimately logged on. Another can reproduce a copy of the Web page showing account balances - except with the balances altered to show the numbers the victim expects to see. This buys time for the thief to drain the account and hide his trail, Ollmann says.

Despite the trojans, Johnson of the bankers' association insists "online banking, on balance, is safe."

(USAT Today)

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ATTENTION:

Just need to contact a financial institution RIGHT NOW?

Then call one of the toll free numbers below for the country you are currently in:

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Then, once you've dialed into one of our Public Access Numbers or use our Call Button, you can then simply SAY the name of the bank, insurance company, government agency, or financial institution you wish to be connected to, and you'll be connected immediately --- no need to remember telephone numbers --- Just SAY IT, and you're instantly connected!