Pub. 9 2014-2015 Issue 4

www.nebankers.org 16 Extraordinary Service for Extraordinary Members. F OR SOME, HOLIDAY SHOPPING IS like Christmas every day. For others, it’s like a never-ending Black Friday. For hackers, it’s a dream come true. “CyberMonday” is amagical day that occurs the Monday following Thanks- giving. It’s a day for people who like to find great deals while shopping from the comfort of their own homes, via smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. The IBM 2013 Holiday Benchmark Reports show that for Cyber Monday 2013, retail sales grew 20.6 percent from the previ- ous year and projections for 2014 follow a similar trend. With the additional online shopping during the holiday season, hackers are being given more opportunities to steal personal information so they can do a little extra shopping themselves. At the time of publication, 242 data breaches had been reported in 2014. With names like Staples, Home Depot, AT&T, and even Apple on the list, it’s clear that no matter where or how you spend your money, a chance exists that your information will be exploited. It’s probably safe to say we can’t as- sume the general American populous is going to turn to homemade gifts, do all of their Christmas shopping in cash, or even consider security in their haste to TECH TALK get the best deal on the Disney Frozen Complete Story Playset. So, what can your financial institu- tion do to help ensure the safety of your coworkers, employees, and customers this holiday season? Raise awareness. Onemajor thing you can do to prevent your holiday from becoming a hacker-day is to raise aware- ness. Remind your employees and cus- tomers that the holidays are a time when a lot ofmoney is going tobemoving out of your financial institution, so the chance of fraudulent activity is going to be higher than normal. Take alerts seriously and remind your customers to keep an eye on their financial statements. Dust off the Red Flag training. A great way to remind your employees of the dangers this holiday season is by going over your identity theft prevention program (Red Flags). The holidays are busy for everyone, so there may not be time to revisit your full-blown annual Red Flag training, but it wouldn’t hurt to refresh thememory of some common red flags, such as inconsistent account use or notificationof unauthorized transactions. Just because this issue affects you at work doesn’t mean it won’t affect you at home. So, as you are doing some shop- ping yourself, keep the following best practices in mind: Be sure the webs i te says “https://.” If you are about to make a purchase, be sure the web address says “https://” and not just “http://.” The ad- ditional “s” on the end means that your information is going to be encrypted, which makes it much more difficult for a hacker to intercept and use. Use only secure Wi-Fi. Areas of concern include, but are not limited to, free Wi-Fi in coffee shops, the mall, airports, etc. If you didn’t have to enter a password to use the Wi-Fi, neither did the hacker sitting two rows over from you. Happy Hacker-days! Alyssa Middleton, CoNetrix