It is very important to protect your money and prevent criminals from taking it, you need to know the most common financial threats that you can be exposed to. You need to understand how they work, when they can happen and how to best protect yourself from them.
What are Financial Threats?
It can be a threat to a person or institution’s money, savings, investments, and many other resources. The extent of financial threats is so large that it can include anything from identity theft scams to foreign exchange (forex) frauds. Financial threats are most common online scams that people, especially the elderly, face while going through their regular online activities. They can normally hit you while doing some online shopping, filling out your taxes, or doing business-related research. There is also malware such as ransomware, viruses, Trojans, and spyware that criminals use to obtain your private and financial information. By following these simple steps in your daily life, you can protect yourself and minimize these threats –
1. Monitor your bank accounts regularly
Your online banking accounts can be at risk from some unauthorized activity. Huge amount of money is lost every year to hackers who exploits server breaches, weak passwords, and phishing schemes.
Keep checking your bank account regularly as it is important to protect yourself from fraud. If you’ve ever used online bank account services, then you probably have noticed how easy it is to check on the status of your bank account.
Monitoring your bank accounts for suspicious activity is an important step in reducing the risk of fraud.
You can also use an app to monitor your financial accounts.
2. Install an Antivirus
To defeat cyber criminals on the Internet, you need to be better than them. That’s why we recommend to use an antivirus with artificial intelligence, to protect your online financial accounts.
An antivirus software works as the first line of defense to protect you from malicious attacks. This is particularly useful for preventing phishing attacks where keyloggers get you to enter your financial information. The best antivirus provides you the below features –
- Malware Protection – A powerful antivirus protects you from 100 million real-world financial threats, so you can bank safely. It blocks viruses, adware, spyware, and other unwanted software and trackers. It should be able to detect and remove all malware before they attack your information or the device.
- Ransomware Protection – It is a financial threat that encrypts virtually any file, including videos, photos, documents, and more. Protect yourself from hackers trying to steal your files and identity, using an antivirus with ransomware protection.
- Scanning options – Always use an antivirus with scanning options to discover and remove threats. These threats can take down your organization and put you out of business or cost you millions in a data breach hence it is very crucial to protect yourself from them.
3. Create strong Passwords for your Financial Accounts
Still it is the best way to prevent someone from accessing your financial accounts is to create strong passwords and keep changing them frequently. Strong passwords make it hard for cybercriminals to hack your accounts. How you can create a strong password –
- Enter a strong, unique password that’s at least 8 characters long. Add numbers, special characters, and uppercase & lowercase letters for added security.
- Avoid using your personal information such as your birth date and phone number as your password
- Avoid using common names, nick names or easy to remember keyboard paths as your passwords
You can use a password manager to create strong passwords for your online accounts such as social media, credit cards, bank accounts, email, and cloud services. It helps you to keep track of new passwords and older ones.