Internet Security

Fraud and Identity Theft

If you believe you may be a victim of identity theft:

1. Contact your financial institution to inform them of your situation and place the appropriate holds on your accounts.  For ProgressBank customers, call (256) 319-3639. 
2. Contact the Social security Administration’s Fraud hotline at (800) 269-0271 to report fraudulent use of your identification information.
3. Report the incident as quickly as possible to any one of the credit reporting agencies:
   a) Experian (888) 397-3742
   b) Equifax (800) 525-6285
   c) Trans Union (800) 680-7289
   
   You should review your current credit bureau report to identify any unauthorized accounts or inquiries and ask the credit reporting agency about placing a Victim Alert Flag on your files.
4. File a police report in your local jurisdiction and retain the report number and the name of the officer who took the report.
5. File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by contacting the FTC’s Identity Theft Hotline: (877) IDTHEFT.
   

Protecting Your Personal Information

• Follow these security measures to protect and help prevent potential misuse of personal information about you:
• Protect and properly dispose of your account records.
• Do not share account information, passwords, user IDS, PINs, code words or other confidential information with others.
• Change your access codes on a regular basis. 
•  Do not provide confidential information by telephone to unknown callers.
•  Do not provide confidential information online unless you imitated the contact, know the party with whom you are dealing, and provide the information through a secure channel.
•  When conducting business over the Internet, always use a secure browser, exit online applications as soon as you finish using them, and make sure you have virus protection and a firewall and update them regularly.
• Monitor your credit report for accuracy.  By law, you are entitled to receive one free credit file disclosure every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies.  To learn more or request a copy of your credit report, visit annualcreditreprot.com or call (877) 322-8228.

E-Mail Security

Follow these security measures to protect and help prevent potential misuse of personal information when using e-mail:

• Do not respond to unsolicited e-mails from companies requesting that you re-validate personal information or that link to web sites requesting that you revalidate personal information.  This is true even for companies with which you do business.  Should you receive such an e-mail, contact the company directly via phone or by typing in their home URL directly to determine the validity of the e-mail.
• Be alert for scam e-mails.  They may appear to come from a trusted business or friend but they are actually designed to trick you into downloading a virus or jumping to a fraudulent web site to obtain sensitive or personal information.
• Do not reply to any e-mail that requests your personal information.  Be very suspicious of any e-mail from a business or person that asks for your password, Social Security Number, or other sensitive or personal information.
• Never send personal or sensitive information via e-mail.  Regular e-mails are not encrypted and are easily obtained and seen by others.
•  If e-mails or web sites contain typographical or grammatical errors, review them carefully as these are often signs of fraud attempts to compromise your information.
• Do not share IDs or passwords with others.
• When your computer is not in use, shut it down or disconnect it from the Internet.

Virus Protection

Install a personal firewall to help prevent unauthorized access to your home computer, especially if you connect to the Internet via a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem.  If your computer becomes infected with a virus, you could lose information and incur repair expense.  Make sure your computer has an anti-virus protection program installed to reduce the risk of your computer becoming infected.  Keep you anti-virus software updated.  Anti-virus software needs frequent updates to guard against new viruses.  Do not open e-mail attachments or CD disks unless you are certain that you can trust the source.  

Phishing

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent e-mail messages to addresses requesting them to supply confidential information.  The message can be directed at a smaller number of targeted recipients, but is more often mass-mailed or “spammed” to thousands of potential victims.  The e-mail is disguised to look like a request from a legitimate organization, company or individual.  Often the message include a warning regarding a problem related to the recipient’s account and requests the recipient to respond by providing specific confidential information.  The format of the e-mail typically includes proprietary logos and branding as well as a “From” line all disguised to appear as if the message came from a legitimate sender.  Typically, the information requested by such scams includes account numbers, passwords, PINs, Social Security numbers or other personal non-public information.   

Limit Direct Marketing Materials

To reduce the marketing materials you receive from companies:

• Contact the Credit reporting industry’s pre-screening opt out number at (888) 567-8688 or visit optoutprescreen.com.  This will remove your name from all pre-approved credit solicitations.
• Add your telephone number to the National Do Not Call Registry.  You may either call (888) 382-1222 or register online at donotcall.gov.  While this will stop many calls, you may still receive calls from businesses where you are a customer.