A Future Vision of Safe Online Banking

In the future, computer technicians hope to have more secure websites to provide better online security, so that people don’t hesitate before doing their online shopping. The world of online banking is growing every day, and before long most people will be doing almost all of their banking online. Large institutions, such as CIBC, ScotiaBank, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank hope to be able to offer their customers partial to complete online banking, depending on what the customer’s preferences are. Instead of using brand- new technologies, banks can be expected to fix the problems with their online banking now, such as offering better online customer service and advice, and to fix glitches in their systems.

Online Banking Precautions

Scams like this are unfortunately quite common, but there is a lot that you can do to alleviate the risks and dangers of online banking. Before putting your credit card numbers into a website, check the authority of the website. If the website doesn’t look polished and put together, investigate further. You can also reference to make sure that you have the right website, and that the website address isn’t just similar to the one that you wanted. Each website should have a card security and privacy policy on their web page, Read through this before ever entering your credit card number. Another solution to online theft is to get a separate credit card with a lower limit, and to use only that one online, so that even if your online credit card number is taken, you are only responsible for a minimal amount of money. The more popular online shopping stores are now using more than one password for people who wish to shop online, which helps to combat credit card numbers being stolen. For example, instead of having to type in just one password to verify your purchase, you would have to type in maybe two or three, including your credit card number, expiry date, and a code that needs to be used with every transaction.

Dangers with Online Banking

There are many dangers and risks to online banking. There is the possibility of online bank robbers taking down credit card numbers, therefore being able to take a maximum amount of money in minimum amount of time, because all they need is a credit card number and an expiry date, which you put in to the websites when you want to buy things online. Another problem with online banking is ‘phishing’, which is when scammers use fake websites and e-mails to get people to put in their personal information. A well- known internet scam that occurred in 2006 was an e-mail that was sent out to Royal Bank customers asking them to verify their personal information through e-mail. The reply e-mail was ‘royalbank.com’, while the actual Royal Bank website is ‘rbc.com’. The websites that provide one stop shopping like online grocery shopping and online clothing shopping need only one password to authenticate purchases if you have shopped there before. This is not considered secure at all, because one password is not too hard for people to guess, and this scenario occurs a lot, where online hackers use an illegal computer program to figure out single passwords. While some websites are now being responsible, another problem is people hacking into personal computers and copying down the passwords as they are used, and saving them for later use. This is known as ‘keylogging’.