{"id":12213,"date":"2022-11-09T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shieldagency.com\/blog\/?p=12213"},"modified":"2022-11-08T09:08:34","modified_gmt":"2022-11-08T15:08:34","slug":"money-stolen-from-your-bank-account-heres-how-to-lower-your-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shieldagency.com\/blog\/money-stolen-from-your-bank-account-heres-how-to-lower-your-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Money Stolen From Your Bank Account: Here\u2019s How to Lower Your Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Customers need to be vigilant as thefts and money stolen from personal accounts become more common<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

AARP<\/a> | By Christina Ianzito | October 21, 2022 | Money Stolen | Shield Insurance<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Nicole Brandes, 54, did a routine check of her three linked Bank of America accounts online recently, she noticed something alarming: $10,000 was missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington, D.C., art teacher looked closer to find that $9,300 from her business account and $700 from her personal checking account had first been transferred to a fourth account in her name that she\u2019d never opened. It was then promptly withdrawn by the cybercriminals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried, I don\u2019t have any explanations,\u201d Brandes said a week before the bank compensated her for the loss. \u201cIt\u2019s totally confusing and disorienting.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money stolen is all too common.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There was a 90 percent increase in account takeover fraud and a 109 percent increase in new account fraud \u2014 when a criminal opens an account in a victim\u2019s name \u2014 in 2021, according to a report from Javelin Strategy & Research<\/a>. Total combined losses for traditional identity fraud and scams related to identity fraud totaled $52 billion and affected 42 million consumers in the United States.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese kinds of account takeovers have been increasing over the last number of years,\u201d says Mark Solomon, vice president of the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators, who notes that chip technology has made it more difficult to make counterfeit credit cards, so criminals will \u201csteal the person,\u201d meaning their identity, \u201cinstead of the card.\u201d They\u2019ll then use that identity theft to, among other crimes, access or open bank accounts and steal money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because they generally have built up more savings than their younger counterparts, older people are often the target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How criminals can access your account  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a reason that choosing smart passwords \u2014 and using a different one for each of your accounts \u2014 is one of the top rules (if not the<\/em> top rule) for protecting yourself from identity theft and fraud.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Websites are frequently hacked, compromising sometimes millions of passwords, as occurred with LinkedIn last year in a data breach that compromised the personal information of 700 million users. Once stolen, usernames and passwords are often sold on underground markets to cybercriminals, who can then test them on bank login pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criminals know that many people use the same or similar passwords across dozens of accounts. \u201cEvery time I talk to people, I hear the same story when I ask, \u2018Is your pet store account password the same as your Citi account, the same as your coffee shop account?\u2019\u2009\u201d says Mike Steinbach, a former federal law enforcement officer and head of Citi\u2019s fraud prevention unit. \u201cYou hear, \u2018Well, yeah.\u2019  Or people will say, \u2018For the coffee shop I have Fido123, but for Citi I have Fido321.\u2019 Modern tools can hack through that in a matter of seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Criminals will also send phishing emails \u2014 advertising a product, telling you you\u2019ve won a prize, you name it \u2014 with a link that, when clicked, can infect your computer with credential-stealing malware, says Laurie Iacono, an associate managing director at the business services and cyber risk firm Kroll. This allows them to harvest all of your saved login credentials. Or they might try to obtain identifying information through a survey or quiz. The more personal information they have, the easier it is for them to impersonate you and access your accounts without the bank flagging their transactions as suspicious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These criminals are incredibly adept at using the latest technology to achieve their ends \u2014 more so than the general public, says Steinbach, \u201cbecause they\u2019re not constrained by laws or morality, so therefore fraud is occurring at a speed and scale that we\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“People will say, ‘For the coffee shop I have Fido123, but for Citi I have Fido321.’ Modern tools can hack through that in a matter of seconds.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to prevent account theft  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cUnfortunately, there are a lot of different ways to commit fraud,\u201d Solomon says, \u201cand nothing\u2019s 100 percent foolproof to be able to lock down your information and prevent fraud completely.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2014 Mike Steinbach, head of Citi\u2019s fraud prevention unit<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Although banks have the highest-tech cybersecurity systems, there\u2019s not much they can do to stop a criminal who is able to assume your identity from accessing your account. \u201cI think they do a really awesome job at cybersecurity in general,\u201d Iacono says. \u201cBut when someone gets total information or access to a machine, then there is a possibility of them bypassing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Steinbach puts it: \u201cFraudsters will go after the weakest link,\u201d and because banks\u2019 security systems are so advanced, \u201cin a large portion of cases,\u201d that weak link is the customer.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way to protect your money is to consider yourself in a theft-prevention partnership with your bank, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are more ways to lower your risk of becoming the victim of an account takeover: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Never reuse passwords.<\/strong> Don\u2019t use the same password on every single site \u2014 particularly if you\u2019re one of the many who opt for \u201c123456\u201d and \u201cpassword\u201d (two of the most commonly used passwords, according to the password management company NordPass). Use unique, long passphrases (think 40-plus characters) for each, and subscribe to a password manager, such as LastPass or Keeper, to store them all. You\u2019ll just need to have a single, very strong and memorable passphrase for the password manager. Choose something that\u2019s \u201crelevant to you but as random as possible,\u201d suggests Neil Grant, AARP\u2019s senior identity and access manager architect.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Use a unique username, too.<\/strong> \u201cIf you don\u2019t have to use an email address as a username, don\u2019t,\u201d Steinbach says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Set up multifactor authentication (MFA) on your accounts. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here for the rest of the article…<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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