Beware of hackers! You can take these precautions to keep your financial data safe

Hackers and fraudulent customers stole Rs 7.38 crore by tampering and manipulating the authorisation process of Razorpay Software to authenticate 831 failed transactions, according to a complaint filed by the payment gateway company.

The company’s representative stated, in the complaint, that the company was not able to reconcile receipt of Rs 7.38 crore against 831 transactions. Although the spate of irregularities didn’t impact the end consumers, they raise serious questions over the security of digital transactions.

To keep your financial data safe & secure, one should try and take the following precautions:

1. Refrain from sharing of data on websites: As a rule of thumb, you should limit the number of websites on which you save your sensitive data. It is advised to restrict the number of websites on which you save your sensitive financial information such as debit or credit card details.

Although you will be tempted to save your card details because it is convenient, your data becomes more vulnerable to data breaches on any of the many portals where your data is stored.

2. Make note of regular payments: Although a new factor of authentication has been introduced, it is advisable for consumers to keep track of the recurring payments. RBI introduced an additional factor of authentication (AFA) from October 1 last year in view of the storage of financial card details on merchants’ websites.

This implies another level of verification via OTP will be sent to the consumer before the payment is deducted from the customer’s bank account.

Earlier, the consumers were not asked to verify a recurring transaction before money was deducted from the debit or credit card saved on the merchant’s website. The key reason of AFA was to protect the consumers from frauds via misuse of their financial data saved on the websites for recurring payments.

3. Take the task of setting passwords seriously: Don’t shy away from literally writing down your passwords in a notepad and make conscious efforts to set the passwords which are easy to remember but impossible to guess. Also, keep changing them from time to time.

4. Viable backup option in cloud: While you are supposed to use sound security practices while making use of the cloud, it offers an ideal solution for backing up your data. Since data is not stored on a local device, it is easily accessible even when your hardware gets conked off.

5. Anti-malware protection: Malware is an acute issue that plagues computer users and it can surface in inconspicuous places. It can be present on websites and emails, or hidden in downloadable files, photos, videos, freeware or shareware.

Anti-malware protection is imperative for laying a foundation of security for your devices. The best way to avoid getting infected is to run a good anti-virus protection program, do periodic scans for spyware, avoid clicking on suspicious email links or websites.

6. Restricted access to social media accounts: Apart from limiting the access to your credit card details, make sure to restrict access to social media accounts. Generally, it’s from the social media accounts that the users give away clues to security questions such as pet’s name, first car or mother’s maiden name.

7. Say ‘no’ to public networks: Using public wi-fi to access sensitive information such as bank accounts is a strict no-no. This can give fraudsters access to your data. In case you have to use the public wi-fi on a regular basis, try to buy a virtual private network (VPN), which will enable you to create a secure connection.