Your Business Online Banking Account is a critical part of your operations, so it’s important to periodically review and update access controls. Here are a few tips for maintaining a secure account:
1. Update Your Password
Cybersecurity experts recommend updating your password every three months, or sooner if you suspect your password has been compromised. A strong password is long, and should use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid words found in the dictionary or something that can be deduced from your social media accounts — like your pet’s name or your favorite sport. Most importantly, your Online Banking password should be unique. Repeating passwords on multiple sites is risky, because if a hacker discovers one set of credentials, they will try it on multiple other sites hoping they can break into your accounts. A password manager is a secure, handy tool for keeping track of all your passwords.
2. Consider Your Security Question Answers
One simple way to add a layer of protection to your accounts is to choose wrong or nonsense answers to security questions. If at age 16, you drove a green SUV, the security answer to “What was your first car?” might be “big avocado” rather than “green Ford Explorer.” The idea is to choose an answer that only has meaning to you and cannot be easily guessed. Real answers to your security questions may have been published in the past if you have ever participated in social media quizzes, polls, and challenges. Avoid using your real information, especially information typically found in security questions, like your mother’s maiden name or the name of the street you grew up on, in any situation, no matter how seemingly harmless it may seem. A moment of fun could lead to many lost hours spent repairing damage to your identity.
3. Review Employee Access
If you delegate Online Banking access to employees to help manage your daily operations, be sure to periodically review their access. Here are some things you can do to protect your business:
- Make sure each individual has their own login to any systems. You can set up profiles depending on what tasks or transactions they may be responsible, and you can even set up dual control to show entry and approval.
- Regularly update your passwords and be sure not to share them with others. A universal login might be convenient, but doing that takes the security out of having that set of credentials and leaves you at risk.
- Monitor system profiles for past employees or vendors with system access and be sure to remove them or limit the access as soon as their purpose for access is complete. Active logins without limitations allow those individuals (or a fraudster that comes across those credentials) to have access when they should not.
4. Keep Your Systems Updated
Keep your computer up to date and run updated malware protection (aka antivirus software). New security threats are released every day, and the most current versions of software are important for defense.
