How To Avoid Fake Banking Apps
February 22, 2021
How To Avoid Fake Banking Apps
Mobile banking has become the new normal. Not only is it easy to access, but it's efficient and mostly secure.
So what is the downside to mobile banking apps? With more people using these apps to access their sensitive financial information and credentials, cybercriminals have an incentive to find ways to infiltrate and exploit you and your systems.
Some examples of ways cybercriminals are attempting to gain access to your accounts is through creating fake malicious banking apps and mobile banking trojans.
These days, it's actually quite easy for anyone to create an app and upload it to official app stores to get downloaded onto devices. Cybercriminals take advantage of this easy method and create malicious apps that impersonate legitimate banking apps so you have to be extremely cautious when downloading new apps from app stores.
What Should You Do?
If you download a fake banking app and input your login credentials, your account may get compromised.
This is what you can do to keep your sensitive banking information secure:
1. Only download official banking apps from an official app store. Make sure you double check that the app is legitimate and trusted. If you notice anything suspicious at all, don't input your credentials and information. Never download an app from an unofficial app store as it could easily contain malware.
2. Always log out of your bank app before exiting the app, tab, or browser. Many people forget this easy step, and it raises security risks for them. If you don't fully log out of your account, you could be letting your open bank account sit online which is easy for a cybercriminal to access. Always take the extra 10 seconds to log out properly.
3. Constantly monitor for any suspicious or out of the ordinary activity on your mobile banking app. It's common for us to trust that the apps on our devices are safe and that often leads us to overlook some obvious signs of malicious activity. Always be alert when using your apps, and if you sense anything out of the ordinary such as spelling mistakes or strange links delete the app immediately. Even official legitimate apps can get compromised by outside sources, so it's always a good practice to be monitoring for anything suspicious.
For an added layer of security, make sure to sign up for our Cyber Protect plan, that way if there are any malicious apps downloaded onto your device, you'll be notified right away.
Sign up HERE