Monday November 30th is Cyber Monday: Tips for Staying Secure

Blog November 27, 2020 by Paul Abramson

In past blog posts we have highlighted COVID-related scams that are popping up, including fake websites targeting people ordering masks and sanitizing products. The scarcity of these items caused by the pandemic has significantly increased the number of successful attempts. In addition, people are doing more of their shopping online while under quarantine orders or self-isolating due to the recent rise in cases nationwide, which might include signing up and creating new accounts with new or less trustworthy online retailers, increasing the risk of falling prey to a scam or fraud.

Many businesses also have employees working from home and using their own personal computers, which may contain malware and credential-stealing programs that could expose a company to corporate account takeover or worse yet, compromise the company network. Tax professionals are also common targets as highlighted in various IRS publications such as this one.

Protect Your Business¶

We thought we’d take the opportunity today to provide some tips on staying secure through the 2020 holiday season. We offer many tools to help you secure your accounts with us, we encourage you to review how you’re configured to protect against online attacks. We’re always happy to help you improve security!

Passwords. Password length is more important than complexity, make sure you choose a password that’s longer than 10 characters (passphrases combining multiple words or sentences are even better). Use a unique password for your online banking account.

Keep your browsers up to date. Even the strongest encryption we offer won’t benefit you if you’re using a browser that doesn’t support it. That’s why it’s critical to keep your browsers current. Browser updates also fix software bugs that can put you at risk of malware infection or account compromises.

MFA. Enable multi-factor authentication, and consider using a soft or hard token instead of SMS text for added convenience and stronger security. Having this in place means even if your password is stolen access to your account is impossible without the second factor.

Dual control. For business customers, enable dual control for higher risk transactional activities like wire approval. Check out our other tips for protecting against the risk of corporate account takeover here.

Avoid account re-use and protect personal devices! Ensure all of your employees have unique credentials for business online banking. Provide them with tips for securing their personal devices, particularly if they will be using them to access your company network. Warn them also of the risks of logging into your corporate network from public WiFi hotspots.

Regular access reviews. Periodically review the employee accounts associated with business online banking. Make sure to remove terminated employees, or people who no longer require access. Review the permissions assigned to your employees and if they match assigned responsibilities and authority levels.

Account alerts. Set up notifications to manage account activity in real time. Ask for text alerts when your debit card is used with certain types of merchants or that exceed certain thresholds. You can also enable online banking alerts to notify you of potentially fraudulent activity, such as when a new computer logs into your account.

Enroll in digital wallet. Shopping with ApplePay, AndroidPay, or Samsung pay protects your debit card information and also provides real-time notifications of purchase activity.

The FDIC also published a Cybersecurity Guide for Businesses with helpful tips on how to safeguard computer systems and data.

From all of us at American Riviera Bank, we’re wishing you a safe and secure holiday shopping season for 2020! Make sure to check out our website to learn about all of the things we are doing to keep you safe with our new .BANK domain.