During times of uncertainty, it’s natural to seek information and answers through the internet and social media.
But according to Jude Schramm, executive vice president and chief information officer of Fifth Third Bank: “Unfortunately, criminals will often use that to their advantage.”
Fifth Third, for instance, noted the occurrence of phishing – when a data thief impersonates a legitimate person or company via email to bait the recipient into reporting confidential information or gaining unauthorized access to systems, while also seeing reports of malware (malicious software) disguised as a coronavirus map.
Considering these developments, Fifth Third offers the following best practices to protect your customers’ identities and financial lives during the Coronavirus-19 outbreak:
1. Stick to credible resources.
Health-wise, for instance, stick to the likes of the Centers for Disease Control (www.cdc.gov), National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov), World Health Organization (www.who.int) and well-known local and national news reporting agencies for information.
2. Do not click on links or attachments from senders you do not recognize.
Note that this applies not only to email, but also to text messages.
3. Keep your computer “healthy”.
This means you should apply patches and updates as soon as notified one is needed. Do not push off these updates until later.
4. Do not share sensitive personal information (like usernames and passwords) by email.
5. Watch for email senders using suspicious or misleading domain names.
6. Inspect URLs carefully (without clicking on the link) to make sure they’re legitimate and not imposter sites.
