Enjoy the Summer, Keep your Debit Card Info Safe

This summer you may find yourself traveling a long distance for a fun adventure, or you may be driving the kids all over town or around the state for different events, such as swimming lessons and little league baseball games. This means using your debit card more often than you usually do – for the purchase of fuel, flights, food and fun. You’ll also find yourself at your local ATM more often. Even though you’re busy, it’s important to take a moment to manage your money and to remember some safety tips when using your card.

The following are some Consumer Reports suggestions about staying safe this summer…

• Beware when using foreign ATMs –
  If you see an out-of-order sign on a legitimate ATM, beware of using a nearby ATM. Thieves may have set up a phony ATM to “skim” card data. Consumer Reports also suggests keeping your PIN code separate from your ATM or debit card. Also, when keying your PIN into an ATM or card reader, shield the keypad with your free hand. Do not allow hidden cameras or any person to be in sight of the keypad.

• Protect your card and information at gas pumps –
  Consumer Reports reported “Card-skimming at gas stations is likely to increase during summer months, especially in vacation areas.” To protect yourself, they suggest using cash or credit cards at the pump, if possible. Should you have to use a debit card, process it as a credit card transaction instead of using your PIN.

• Update your account weekly –
  Be sure to maintain your account, so should any unauthorized transactions take place, you may report them to your bank quickly. Time is of the essence!

• What to do with receipts? –
  Do not discard receipts at ATM locations or the gas pump. Keep them until you match the amounts with the transactions, wait for them to clear the bank, then shred the receipts.

• Your trash may be a treasure to a thief –
  Be sure to shred bank account statements and other financial information prior to tossing them in the trash. Trash is among the top methods used by thieves to commit Identity Theft. Protect yourself – Don’t let them do it to you!

>> Have you heard of other “card-skimming” scams? Share with the community, so that we all can work to protect our identity.

Don’t Get Phished!

In April, Epsilon, an online marketing firm, encountered a massive security breach when millions of names and email addresses were exposed to hackers (and more recently, the Sony breach).  While Capitol Federal does not use this marketing firm, the breach offers an important reminder to be vigilant about phishing scams. 

Phishing scams are a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, account information and credit card details by copycatting a trustworthy entity.  Phishing scams can lure people in by looking like other popular sites or companies, such as popular online auction sites, payment processors, online banking sites and social media sites.  This type of scam is usually found in email or instant messaging and can direct people to fake websites that look almost identical to the legitimate one. 

Use these recommendations to protect your information from phishing attacks:

• Don’t send your account information, user ID or password in an unsecured email. 
  This is also true for unsuspecting calls made to you.  Never disclose an account number or other personal information to someone who calls you.   Capitol Federal or any other legitimate company will never call to ask customers to provide or verify an account number or passcode. The company already has this information.

• Don’t respond to emails that ask for personal information directly in the email. 
  Most contests will have a separate web page for entering, and only ask for basic information like your name, address and phone number.

• Don’t use your email as a log-in ID or password.

• Be wary of links in unsolicited emails.
  Make sure the links, when moused-over, contain a legitimate domain name and one that is associated with a reputable company.

Be sure to report any suspected phishing attacks to the company being copied.  This will help fight against the attack and allow that company to alert its customers.

If you ever suspect Capitol Federal is the subject of an attack, please call 1-888-8CAPFED (1-888-822-7333) to alert us as soon as possible. And, if you are ever unsure if a CapFed email request is legitimate, you may call us to verify or email womensway@capfed.com.

12 is the New 8

Strengthen your online security with better passwords.

The old eight-letter password standard is now outdated and puts you at risk. Passwords should now be at least 12 characters, say researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. In their tests, they learned that eight-character passwords can be cracked in about two hours, but adding just four additional keystrokes to a password could raise that to a theoretical 17,000 years.

• Another way to strengthen a password is to use well-placed symbols
  like @, # or &.

• Using some capital letters in the password, rather than using all lowercase, greatly reduces the risk of your password being hacked.

• Longer passwords too hard to remember?  Use a phrase, sentence or song that you can easily remember and change it up a bit with certain keystrokes.

See what we mean and learn more about strong passwords from the AARP article,
“Password Tips to Head off the Hackers.”