In the days of identity theft, canceling credit cards, and changing your pin number every other month to keep it safe, people and businesses everywhere are looking for ways to keep their personal information safe.
As leading banking industry experts search for new ways help protect their customers’ financial information, two new safety and security products, Trusteer Rapport and Go ID Tokens, have become available. Many small business banking institutions are discovering ways to further increase their customers’ confidence in their security and privacy capabilities.
1. Trusteer Rapport
Trusteer Rapport is for private banking and businesses. When logged in to an online banking service, Trusteer Rapport provides an extra layer of security to your computer. This optional and new program protects your Internet connection and computer by creating a tunnel for safe communication with your bank, preventing hackers from using malware to obtain your log-in data and mess with transactions.
Rapport provides the following benefits:
- Rapport locks down communication between the computer and the bank’s website, once verification is complete. This prohibits criminals from accessing or controlling the online connection with the bank
- Rapport will also remove known viruses from your computer. If it is unknown, it will just lock down that virus while you are in your Internet Banking session
- Furthermore, Trusteer Rapport encrypts your key strokes, so hackers can not recover your login information
- Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Rapport verifies that the connection to the bank’s genuine website as opposed to a fake website created by fraudsters. Although this sounds trivial, it’s not obvious that you reach a genuine website when you type your bank’s address into your web browser. This helps prevent users from logging onto a known “phishing” website
2. Go ID Security Tokens
For many banks, Go ID Security Tokens will now be required for business customers that send wire transfers or ACH transactions.
Trusteer Rapport and Go ID Security Tokens provide an additional layer of security. Although very beneficial, they are in no way meant to replace any layer of security already in place.
In other words, safe private and business banking practices are still necessary, such as firewalls, anti-virus software, dual control, daily monitoring of your bank accounts, and review of email confirmations.
Safety Tips:
- Review common best practices for avoiding phishing and malware
- Daily review your accounts
- Keep your anti-virus program up to date
- Do not open an email from unknown sources
- Business customers should require dual control for transactions