Protect Your Identity Online - And Yourself

The number and sophistication of phishing scams sent out to credit union members is continuing to increase dramatically.

While online banking and e-commerce is very safe, as a rule you should always be careful about giving out personal financial information over the Internet.

Here are some helpful hints to help you avoid becoming a victim of these scams:

• Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information. Unless the email is digitally signed to verify the “From:” address in a message, you can't be sure it wasn't forged or 'spoofed'. Phishers typically include upsetting or exciting (but false) statements in their emails to get people to react immediately. In addition, phishers typically ask for information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.
  
• Do not use links in an email to get to any web page, if you suspect the message might not be authentic. Instead, log onto the website directly by typing the Web address in your browser or call the company on the telephone.
  
• Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal financial information. Instead, you should only communicate information such as credit card numbers or account information via a secure website or the telephone.
  
• Always ensure that you are using a secure website when submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser. Make sure you are on a secure Web server by looking at the beginning of the Web address in your browsers address bar. It should be "https://" rather than just "http://".
  
• Consider installing a Web browser tool bar to help protect you from known phishing fraud websites. For example, the EarthLink ScamBlocker is part of a free browser toolbar that alerts you before you visit a page that is on Earthlink's list of known fraudulent phisher Web sites. This tool is free to all Internet users to download at http://www.earthlink.net/earthlinktoolbar.
  
• Regularly log into your online accounts and check for unusual activity on your accounts. In other words, do not leave it for as long as a month before you check each account. Some online banking environments have the ability to post the last date and time that the account was logged on.
  
• Regularly check account statements to ensure that all transactions are legitimate. If anything is suspicious, contact your credit union and all card issuers.
  
• Ensure that your browser is up to date and security patches applied. Those who use the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser should immediately go to the Microsoft Security home page at http://www.microsoft.com/security/ to download a special patch relating to certain phishing schemes.
  
• Always report "phishing" or “spoofed” e-mails by:

  - Forwarding the email to reportphishing@antiphishing.com
  - Forwarding the email to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov
  - Forwarding the email to the "abuse" email address at the company that is being spoofed (e.g. "spoof@ebay.com")
  - Forwarding spoofed messages by including the entire original email with its original header information intact
  - Notifying the Internet Fraud Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: www.ifccfbi.gov/