The last couple of years have witnessed a sudden rise in the number of digital transactions, and the current era of government will always be remembered for encouraging digital transactions and e-payments in order to fight against corruption and black money.
Today, making digital transactions through apps and websites has become really time-saving and easy. These gadgets, our mobile phones that are playing an important role in our lives, offer easy connectivity all around the world. There’s a free flowing data getting exchanged across different devices including tablets, smart phones, and even smart watches to notify us from time to time. However, one of the major concerns with this kind of development is whether the payment that we are all making is a safe data source or not.
While we all may enjoy our share of convenience, but let’s ensure that cyber security is something we all need consider with immense criticality at every step taken online. Here’s a guide to ensure your financial data is safe –
Beware of where you swipe your cards
Fraudsters could snip your money and data through skimmers on bugged ATMs which barely takes a few seconds and goes completely undetected by the card holder. Ensure swiping your cards at ATMs and shopping outlets only.
While making a transaction, be careful of where the card is. Indian banks have made it mandatory to upgrade all the cards to chipped cards.
Be careful about the applications you install
The use of E-wallets is increasing with a growing demand for alternative modes of payment. The highly authentic apps have strong security features but you need to beware of the ones that don’t. Refrain from installing or using an app basis the discounts or offers provided. So before using an app for online payments, make sure to review its features and customer feedbacks to check on its authenticity.
Create a strong password and PIN – revise it periodically
A password that’s easy to crack is also capable of turning your account dry, so refrain from using your own name, birth date, anniversary dates, etc. as your PIN for either of the cards. You need to set a strong password with long combinations of alphabets and numbers which are unique in nature and hard to be guessed
Block your cards and data if your cell phone gets stolen
With all the bank details stored in apps, a phone theft could possibly wipe out all your hard earned money saved. While chasing the thief could be one way of protecting your data, but the safest option would be to wipe off all the data on your phone to prevent monetary loss
Innocent people who often fall prey to foul of Internet Bank account fraudsters can expect some relief by getting their loss recovered if they take reasonable steps to protect their account. Besides taking all these safety measures, these applications also create a private workspace on the cloud for the user’s personally owned device so that they could have an access to the data they own specifically by themselves.