Security Bulletins

VISHING SCAMS : Jun 10, 2009

Vishing like Phishing is a scam that criminals use to acquire your Personally Identifiable Information.

: Jun 10, 2009

These scams involve e-mail, text messages or telephone calls claiming to be from your financial institution or credit card company. They direct you to respond with your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) by phone or email to avoid suspension, deactivation or termination of your account. Beware of e-mails, text messages or telephone calls requesting your PII. If you do receive this type of contact regarding your Beacon Federal account please contact us immediately at (888) 256.3800.

It is NOT Beacon Federal's practice to:

  • Send e-mails or text messages asking you to provide personal or account related information via email.
  • Send e-mails threatening to close your account if you do not take immediate action.
  • Send e-mails requesting you update your personal information using a website link. 
  • Please exercise extreme caution when reading e-mails or text messages such as these.  Contact us immediately at (888) 256.3800 or forward the message to us at beacon@beaconfederal.com.

Identity Theft. It’s important to protect your personal information and to take certain steps quickly to minimize the potential damage from identity theft if your information is accidentally disclosed or deliberately stolen.

Place a “Fraud Alert” on Your Credit Reports. The alert tells creditors to follow certain procedures before they open new accounts in your name or make changes to your existing accounts. Placing the alert entitles you to free copies of your reports, which you should review carefully. The three nationwide Consumer Reporting companies have toll-free numbers for placing an initial 90-day fraud alert. A call to just one will take care of it for you.


 

Close Accounts. Close any accounts that have been tampered with or established fraudulently.

File a Police Report. File a report with law enforcement officials to help you with creditors who may want proof of the crime. This report will also help you claim your rights as a victim of identity theft. Be sure to keep a copy for your records.

Report the Theft to the Federal Trade Commission. Your report helps law enforcement officials across the country in their investigations. Do this at www.ftc.gov/idtheft or by phone: (877) 438.4338.

Your security is very important to us and we are constantly upgrading our system to protect your personal information. To learn more about the measures we take to ensure safe and secure banking, click here.

Note: Beacon Federal will never ask you for any personal account information via unsolicited emails or telephone calls.

Online Banking Security

  • Our Business Internet Banking uses Digital Certificates with 128-bit encryption to authenticate customers. Digital Certificates enable secure and confidential communication between the Bank and you.
  • Our Business Internet Banking also uses encryption. Encryption is the process of converting information into a more secure format for transmission. In other words, the plain text is converted to scrambled code while being transmitted, and then decrypted back to plain text at the receiving end of the transmission.
  • There are two levels of encryption generally available in web browsers: 40-bit encryption and 128-bit encryption. Beacon’s Business Internet Banking requires 128-bit encryption. This is the highest level of encryption available in North America today. - The security padlock at the bottom right of the browser window indicates that a secure session is in progress. Double-clicking the padlock will tell the user the level of security by showing the Digital Certificate. 

User Names and Passwords: Tips for Protection:

User names and passwords are personal and highly confidential. This helps safeguard against unauthorized access to your Business Internet Banking account. To benefit fully from this protection, your business and users must ensure that their user names and passwords are kept confidential at all times.

  • Never use “PASSWORD” as your password.  
  • Choose a password that is difficult for a third party to guess. The best passwords contain numbers and both upper- and lower-case characters.  


DO NOT use a familiar name, date, or place that may be easy for a third party to discover.

DO NOT share your password with anyone. Always memorize your password. Change your passwords regularly and DO NOT alternate between passwords.

DISABLE any login and password auto-complete functions on browsers.

DO NOT allow anyone to view login or identify the keys you are pressing while logging on.

DO NOT record your password on your computer or browser. Protect your password; keep it secret and never write it down or share it with anyone.

DO NOT use a password that is also used in connection with a third party (e.g. an Internet Service Provider).

DO NOT use the same password for every system you access. Change your password immediately if you believe that someone else may know it.