If you use our “It’s Me 247 Online Banking”, you know that there are security controls in place such as using a complex password and security questions.  These security controls weren’t put in place to inconvenience you, but to inconvenience a hacker who would like to steal your banking information.  Here are some tips to improve your password strength and make it challenging for someone to get your account information.

More characters. The longer, more complex the password, the harder it is for a hacker to figure out.  Use both capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols when creating your password.  Use the symbols in place of letters, for example: p@sswo2D.  Another good way to set passwords is by a sentence you will remember, such as “April showers bring May flowers”.  You could make your password: @pri!s8mF.

Don’t use personal information as part of a password.  Using a spouse or child’s name as a password is not secure.  Think Facebook for example, how many times do you use your family’s names while posting?  It’s not much work for a hacker to do a little research on the internet to find out any of your personal information. Birthdates are another password to stay away from.

Change your passwords.  Don’t use the same password for each website.  That protects you if one site’s password gets compromised then your other passwords are safe.  Change those passwords at least annually or more often if you feel comfortable doing so.

Create opposite answers to security questions.  If one of the questions is, “What is your favorite food?”, and the obvious answer is chocolate, but you hate coconut, then make the correct answer coconut.  You’ll know what the correct answer is but someone trying to hack into your account will try chocolate (since they saw you posting on Facebook how much you love chocolate).

Think you have a good password?  Use Microsoft’s password checker to see https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx Of course, the opinion of secure passwords vary from site to site, but I tested a few with this site and it liked them better the more complex they were.

Another way you can protect your online account is by using the PIB profile that is available to you through your “It’s Me 247 Online Banking”.  PIB stands for Personal Internet Branch, and that’s exactly what it is.  PIB allows you to set up your online account how you want it.  It allows you to restrict times that the account can be accessed, allows you to require a confirmation password to make transactions and more.  You set up your PIB so you can control the features you want to use and the ones you do not.  Your PIB can be changed anytime you want so if you want to add or change the features you are using, you can!  The PIB profile allows you to add another layer of security to your online account.

This is not to say that if you have a complex password it will never be cracked, but the more complex you make your passwords and sign on information, the more work someone has to do to get into your account.  If you are interested in setting up your PIB profile, please speak to one of our Member Service Representatives.