Onine Security Savings
What is onine security? This booket is designed to make you aware of some of the atest threats that exist when managing your money onine so you can protect your money in the same way you woud protect your house, your car, or other things that are vauabe to you. We are committed to ooking after your money. We use a variety of security measures to keep a your detais totay safe when you manage your money onine. Top Tips for protecting yoursef onine Ensure you have Anti-virus protection Make sure you re protected by a Firewa Keep your computer software up to date Look after your security detais Protect yoursef from Trojans and spyware Take care not to respond to frauduent Phishing e-mais Check the security of e-commerce sites Log out propery when you ve finished with a secure site Exercise caution when using computers in pubic paces Keep passwords and og in detais safe Read this Onine Security booket to understand how to protect your computer and who to contact if you re a victim of fraud.
How to protect yoursef onine Protect your computer Ensure you have Anti-virus protection An Anti-virus protection system heps you to find and remove any viruses or suspicious programs. We strongy recommend that you have up to date Anti-virus software instaed on your home computer and that you ensure that the software is kept up to date with the atest virus definitions. If you access the internet from your workpace pease check that your empoyer has instaed an Anti-virus soution. It s recommended that you use an Anti-virus program which has an Auto Update feature. A scan of a fies shoud be schedued at east once a week; Norton, McAfee and Kaspersky are exampes of credibe suppiers that provide Anti-virus software. You can get free anti-virus software from Grisoft, Anti Vir, and ALWIL/Avast. Be aware that some Anti-virus software is better than others for further information pease visit www.virusbtn.com Make sure you re protected by a Firewa A Firewa protects your computer from unauthorised access and bocks unwanted internet activity. If you re using your home computer to access the internet you shoud use a software Firewa. If you use a computer at work check that your empoyer is maintaining a Firewa. It is recommended that your Firewa is set up to work on both incoming and outgoing traffic. Not ony woud you have contro over what comes into your computer but you d aso have contro on what eaves your computer. Like Anti-virus software, a range of Firewas are avaiabe as free downoads from companies such as ZoneAarm, Kerio and Sygate to commercia products from Norton, McAfee and Trend Micro. Firewa software is aso buit into Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS X athough you may need to activate these as they may not be setup to work as a defaut. For further information visit: www.symantec. com/norton/internet-security or www. grc.com Advice on Firewas is avaiabe at www.firewaguide.com Keep your computer software up to date It s quite common for security probems to be discovered in existing software. When this happens the Software Company wi usuay issue an update known as a patch. If you ve an Appe computer running OS X, you shoud run the Software Update too at east once a week. If you ve a Windows computer, you shoud reguary use Windows Update or Microsoft Update to check for new patches from Microsoft. In some versions of Windows, this wi be an option in the Start Menu, in others you may have to seect Windows Update from the Toos menu of Internet Exporer. You shoud reguary check for updates to the main software on your computer by visiting the suppiers website or using the update features in their software where these are avaiabe. To check for updates and patches you shoud visit your software pubisher s website. These websites can provide more information to hep you keep your computer up to date: www.microsoft.com www.appe.com Stay Safe Onine Exercise caution when using computers in pubic paces As you cannot be certain about the security of a computer in a pubic pace such as a ibrary or Internet café, you shoud be carefu if you have to use such a machine. If you ve any reason to be suspicious about a pubic computer you shoud not use it to access services such as Internet banking. You shoud never change your security detais such as your password on a pubicy accessibe computer (e.g. in an Internet café). If you do use a pubic computer to access Internet banking you shoud ook out for anyone who coud be watching you. For more advice and a step by step guide to staying safe onine visit www.banksafeonine.org.u k a website aunched by APACS, the UK payment association working on behaf of the banking industry. Log out propery when you ve finished with a secure site Never eave your computer unattended when ogged in to a secure session such as when you re using Internet banking. Ensure you og out propery when you ve finished banking onine or using another secure site. Keep hod of your cash Don t be conned by convincing e-mais offering you the chance to make some easy money. If it ooks too good to be true, it probaby is. Be especiay wary of unsoicited e-mais from outside the UK it wi be much harder to prove they are who they say they are.
Protecting your savings Keep your identity secure Look after your security detais Your UserID and Password, aong with the answers to your security questions, are the key to your onine accounts and information. You shoud keep these secure and never share them with anybody. Ensure you change your password within the onine system on a reguar basis. Additiona information is avaiabe at www.antiphishing.org Phishing Watch out for frauduent e-mais A common type of e-mai fraud is Phishing. Phishing is the process where fraudsters (impersonating a we estabished financia organisation) send fase e-mais in an attempt to trick the peope who receive them into reveaing their persona detais. We wi never ask you to send your persona detais via e-mai. If ever you receive an e-mai that asks you to provide your persona information by cicking on a ink pease do not access any inks, discose your sign-in detais or repy even if the e-mai suggests that you need to take immediate action. Phishing is not the ony way that criminas try to use e-mai for fraud. E-mai has been used to make job offers, recruit peope for money aundering and trick peope into visiting sites that expoit weaknesses in their computer to downoad Trojans. Don t be conned by convincing e-mais offering you the chance to make easy money or provide your persona detais. Remember, we wi never ask you to confirm your persona detais via e-mai. You can report a phishing e-mai at www.antiphishing.org as we as forwarding the e-mai to us at abuse@birminghammidshires.co.uk Be very carefu if you receive an e-mai from an unknown or dubious source. Be especiay cautious if these e-mais contain attachments. For more information, pease ca 0845 603 6302 HOW TO SPOT A PHISHING E-MAIL Remember that we wi never send you an e-mai asking you to verify your secure and onine detais. Any e-mais asking you to do this are surey a scam. Beware of inks in e-mais. Genuine e-mais from us do contain inks, but never to our onine banking pages. If you re in doubt about whether an e-mai is genuine or not, don t cick on the ink. WHAT TO DO IF YOU RECEIVE A PHISHING E-MAIL If you sti have the origina e-mai, you can assist us by providing a copy of the e-mai by foowing the procedure beow. If you are using Microsoft Outook or some other mai handing software, open the e-mai, cick on fie and then save as. This shoud aow you to save the e-mai as a separate fie. Don t repy to the e-mai. Send the fie you have just saved to emaiscams@oydsbanking.com (This aows us to preserve the source data from within the e-mai and makes it easier for us to track down the originator of the e-mai). Deete the e-mai immediatey after sending it to the above, without cicking on any inks or repying. Additiona information is avaiabe at www.antiphishing.org. WHAT TO DO IF YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE BECOME A VICTIM OF FRAUD Check your accounts reguary and report any suspicious activity by contacting us on 0845 603 6302. Contact other banks and financia institutions with whom you hod accounts to ensure they ve not been affected. Check your computer is protected with adequate security. If you beieve you have become a victim of fraud contact us immediatey on 0845 603 6302. HOW TO RESET YOUR PASSWORD If you d ike to reset your password, og into theaa.com/savings. Enter your username, password and answers to memorabe questions. Cick option on eft hand side to change password. Once you ve changed your password, an e-mai wi be sent confirming your password has been changed.
Know about Trojans and Spyware Trojans A Trojan is a hidden program that contains maicious code designed to either give contro of your computer to a hacker or record activity. They can aso be used to deete fies or even view the contents of your screen. They can be used to record keystrokes with the aim of capturing User ID s and passwords which are then passed on to the person controing the Trojan. Many Trojans can be detected and removed using up to date antivirus software and there are aso a number of speciaist software programs that caim to detect and remove Trojans. Advice on Trojans and the software toos is avaiabe at www.anti-trojan.net Spyware A type of Trojan that is paced on your computer to secrety gather information about the user, and their browsing habits which is then passed on to advertisers or other interested parties. These programs are often instaed without the user s consent as a resut of visiting a website or through cicking on an option in a deceptive pop-up window. Spyware can aso be carried in viruses or instaed aongside other free software downoaded from the internet. You shoud read the icence agreements for such software very carefuy before you agree to insta it. Spyware can sow down your computer, ater your homepage, produce ots of adverts or inks to websites and even incude keystroke oggers to record detais such as passwords and user names. There are a number of free software toos and commercia products that caim to be abe to remove Spyware from your computer. These shoud be reguary updated with the atest definition fies from the vendor. Two such free products are Ad-aware and Spybot, which are avaiabe at www.avasoft.com & www.safer-networking.org. Stay Safe Onine Check the security of e-commerce sites Be aware that spoof (fake or frauduent) sites do exist. Never go to our website via a ink in an e-mai, ony ever visit the website by typing the address theaa.com into your browser. Secure website addresses usuay start with the etters https: and dispay a padock icon in the bottom section of your Internet browser. Whie these are good indicators that you are visiting a genuine site there have been cases where criminas have been abe to recreate these features on their spoof sites. As a resut, it can be risky to rey entirey on the padock icon. If you doube cick the icon a box wi appear which contains detais of the site owners and heps you to estabish whether it is genuine. Usefu Websites www.antiphishing.org www.anti-trojan.net www.appe.com www.banksafeonine.org.uk www.firewaguide.com www.grc.com www.avasoft.com www.microsoft.com www.safer-networking.org www.symantec.com/norton/internetsecurity www.virusbtn.com Usefu Contact ecrime@oydstsb.co.uk Bank Safe Onine For more advice and a step by step guide to staying safe onine visit www.banksafeonine.org.uk a website aunched by APACS the UK payment association working on behaf of the banking industry. Where we provide inks to another website not under our contro, we accept no iabiity for the content of, or your use of, that other site. Where we provide inks to another website, we neither guarantee the accuracy of the content of that website, nor do we necessariy endorse or approve of that content. We cannot guarantee that you wi be abe to access the other websites at any time.
Gossary Adware Short for advertising-supported software, adware is software that dispays advertisements. Free software sometimes conceas the fact that it carries advertising it may even insta a separate adware program on your computer without teing you. For this reason, it s a good idea to be wary of free software, uness you are confident that the software provider is genuine. Anti-virus software Software which detects viruses and other threats to your computer. The program aerts you when it finds a probem, and either removes the probem from your computer or recommends further action. Browser A software program used to find and dispay web pages on the Internet. Exampes of browser programs incude Internet Exporer, Firefox and Safari (for Macs). Cookies Sma pieces of information which are paced onto your computers hard disk by a website you have visited. Diaog box A sma window which appears on screen, usuay prompting you to respond. Encryption Scrambing data so that persona information, for exampe, can t be seen by anyone ese as it traves between your computer and a secure website. Firewa A program which protects your computer from unauthorised access by third parties over the Internet. Internet Service Provider (ISP) The company who suppies you with your Internet connection, for exampe BT Openword, Tiscai, Bueyonder. Maware Shortened from maicious software, maware is a generic term used to describe software intended to cause damage or disruption to a computer, or to do something not in the interest of the person using it. Exampes of maware incude viruses and trojans. Operating system The underying program, such as Microsoft Windows XP, that enabes your computer to run software appications, such as e-mai and browser programs. Patch An update to a program or operating system, which is needed to correct a probem (often a security issue) overooked at the time the program was reeased. Sometimes caed a fix. Phishing Phishing is an e-mai scam which tries to get you to provide your persona sign-in detais, so that fraudsters can gain access to your accounts. Remember, AA Savings wi never ask you to confirm your secure information in an e-mai. Spam Unwanted e-mais, usuay offering dubious products and services. Various types of antispam software are avaiabe, but the first ine of defence may be your own Internet Service Provider many offer spam-fitering services. Security certificate Security certificates are issued to secure websites to aow them to prove they are genuine. To view a security certificate, doube-cick on the yeow padock icon at the bottom right of your browser window. This aows you to check that you re on a genuine onine banking site, and not a spoof website. Spyware Spyware is software, usuay instaed without your consent, that communicates persona or confidentia information about you to a third party. The information may contain reports on your web-surfing habits, coected for market research purposes, or more sensitive information, such as credit card numbers.
SSL SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a way of encrypting (scrambing) information, such as bank account detais, as it is passed from a web browser to a web server. A web address beginning with https: shows that SSL is being used, so the website is secure. A security certificate aows you to check the credentias of the secure site. Trojan A maicious program that may pretend to be innocent (or be invisibe atogether), but does something you don t expect, ike sending confidentia information to somebody ese s computer. Virus A maicious program which is intended to damage your computer.
This information is aso avaiabe on request in arge print, Braie or audio. Customers can aso contact us by using Text Reay. AA Savings, PO Box 81, Pendeford Business Park, Wobaston Road, Woverhampton WV9 5HZ. Cas may be monitored and recorded for security and training purposes. Lines are open Monday to Saturday 8am-8pm (excuding bank hoidays). The deposit taker for AA Savings accounts is Birmingham Midshires, a division of Bank of Scotand pc, which is authorised by the Prudentia Reguation Authority and reguated by the Financia Conduct Authority and the Prudentia Reguation Authority under registration number 169628. Registered office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotand No. SC327000. D470/00126 Apri 2014