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Protecting Our Members

Fraud Protection

In the United States, there has been a large increase in fraud cases. Southern Security Federal Credit Union is dedicated to providing our valued members with the knowledge to be proactive in preventing fraud and protecting your assets. While we have safety measures in place to protect our members, it’s important to take steps to secure your personal information.  Members should routinely monitor their banking activity, never click on suspicious links, update their passwords regularly, learn to recognize phishing scams, and limit what personal information they share online.

 

What you post on the internet will stay there forever.

Suspicious links:

URL links can be great! We use them to connect ourselves with people all over the world and provide us with an easy way to share information online, but links can also be bad. Did you know hackers and scammers hide malware inside links? This malware can copy files, steal login information, or even damage your devices. Learning which links are safe can be a bit tricky, so you should never click on a link that was sent by someone you don’t know. If you don’t know the sender don’t click the link.

Passwords

Passwords have become an important part of our daily lives, but are your passwords secure? Passwords should be updated at least every 6 months and should never reuse an old password. When creating a new password it should contain a variety of numbers, letters, and symbols. Avoid using your name or family members’ names in your passwords and instead focus on phrases you will remember.

What you post on the internet will stay there forever. (4)
What is Phishing


What is a Phishing Scam?

In simple terms, a phishing scam is when a hacker makes attempts to trick you into providing them with your personal information. These scams come in all shapes and sizes but IT experts have broken them down into 4 types.

Spear Phishing:

A Spear Phishing attack occurs when the hacker already contains some amount of personal information for a group of people. The information they have gathered wouldn’t be enough to compromise an account, but they will use this info to trick you into giving them login information.  These hackers can create fake emails with real company letterhead and include your personal information in the body of the email. This makes the email appear real and can trick users into providing login information, bank card info, or more personal information about themselves.  Always verify the sender of the email before you engage with its content, and if you believe you have witnessed a phishing email you should block the sender immediately.

Whaling:

A whaling phishing scam is like a spear phishing scam. The key difference is that the hacker has a certain target in mind already, and this target is usually a celebrity, CEO, community leader, or in some way famous. They use public information about this person to design a highly targeted and complex scam. This scam can take the form of emails, phone calls, text messages, social media messages, direct mail, or a combination of them all.

Smishing:

A Smishing scam is carried out via text message or SMS. Scammers will pose as a bank, government office, or nonprofit organization that is conducting some kind of survey. They will ask for personal information, money, or for you to click on a link containing malware. If you don’t trust the sender, don’t click on it.

Vishing:

You probably deal with this kind of scam once a week. It’s a spam caller. They will use an automated voice recording to send out thousands of calls a day trying to get your information. They may claim to be with “the bank,” “the government,” “The Social Security,” and many more.

SS-Fraud graphics

 

 

In today’s world, it’s common to have a public digital profile. This may be a social media page, a public blog/vlog, or a forum account. We recognize the value that having these profiles have, but they can also create security risks. Once something is online it’s online forever! This includes your personal information. You should try to limit what information you share online for your own protection. You should never post your home address, banking information, government documents, or anything that you wouldn’t share with a stranger. We also recommend creating a separate email for your finances. This will help prevent your banking email from getting leaked on social media.

 

Report Fraud

 

If you have seen any kind of fraud scams using the Southern Security Federal Credit Union name.

Please report it to our fraud prevention department at 1-888-241-2240

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