Tip of the Week:
Note the following interesting tidbit in the Deposit Account Agreement for Chase Bank...
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Member FDIC
Deposit Account Agreement – Electronic Funds Transfer Service - Terms - Notice of your Rights and Liabilities
Replace #3 of,
“For business accounts only:
You agree” with the following:
3. That by allowing anyone to use your Card, or by failing to exercise ordinary care (such as storing your PIN with your card or
selecting your birthday as your PIN), you will be responsible for all authorized and unauthorized transactions.
So you think all is swell and the banks and credit card companies are not suffering any appreciable losses due to hacking.
THINK AGAIN! These kinds of clauses have appeared in many banks' and credit card companies Terms and Conditions. It is only a
matter of time before they start to enforce them to make you liable instead of them.
So if you are still using your BIRTHDAY as a PIN and/or you are still keeping your PIN with (or worse... written on) your credit
card/debit card or bank card....STOP IT NOW.
Tip of the Week:
It is a good idea to take advantage of "multi-factor" authentication whenever a vendor (especially banking and e-commerce websites)
makes the option available to you. The most common example is a bank who lets you confirm any transaction made on their website
by also sending a text to your cell phone with a temporary code that you have to enter into the bank's website to provide an additional
verification that it is indeed you who is making the transaction.
Tip of the Week:
Forget all the advice about "make your passwords 8 to 12 characters long, use uppercase and lowercase characters, use at least one
number and one symbol". Security professionals have tools that can crack these passwords in less than 15 minutes (and usually
less!) and so do the bad guys!
Here is our advice:
"Thecowwjumpedover8flappatopBarrels"
You have now created a 34 character password with uppercase and lowercase character, and a number. The phrase is not seen in
any book, and the phrase contains nonsense words that will not be found in any dictionary.