Learn How to Protect Yourself from Online Fraud – Phishing Scams

How to know you’re on Heritage Bank Online?

Heritage Bank webpage URL link is https://www.heritageibt.com/ and our online banking log-in page is https://secure.heritageibt.com/login.html. Be attentive to the URL of a website before login in. Fraudsters will use links and web addresses that may look identical to the real site, but the URL may have 1 or more variation in spelling making it difficult to differentiate.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is one of the most common tactics leveraged by today’s hackers, typically delivered in the form of an email, chat, web ad or website designed to impersonate a real system and organization. Often crafted to deliver a sense of urgency and importance. The message within phishing emails are usually requesting users to surrender confidential information such as passwords, credit card details, and bank account numbers that the legitimate organization already has. Once personal information is compromised this will allow hackers to steal your identity and gain access to your email and banking accounts.

Characteristics of Phishing email:

  1. Spelling and grammatical errors.
  2. Generic greetings such as “Dear User”
  3. Threats of account suspension, closure, and necessity for account reactivation.
  4. Appealing to visit a website or link to provide private information.

Tips on how to protect yourself against phishing attacks & identity theft.

What to do?

  • Keep your contact information, mainly your cell phone number and email address updated at the bank.
  • Ensure that email address provided to the bank is for you and not a forwarding email (for example, you might forward mail from your college.edu address to your gmail.com account.)
  • Use a strong, unique password for your online banking account. Frequently change passwords.
  • Pay attention to the URL of a website. Fraud sites may look identical and authentic but is not.
  • Frequently review you’re banking account(s) statement for unusual transaction and activity. 
  • Enroll in our online banking transaction alert notifications.
  • Always ensure to sign off from online banking when not performing banking actions.
  • Avoid using public Wi-Fi for financial transactions unless you’re using a secure, private connection, like VPN software.
  • Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth services when not using them.
  • Set a security code/PIN or fingerprint sign-in to increase security if your phone is ever lost or stolen.
  • Equip your PC with malware, virus protection software and anti-spyware software.
  • Only download software or applications from a trusted source.
  • Keep your computer updated with the latest Operating System and Software Updates.

 

What not to do?

  • Avoid sending confidential information through unsecured email, fax, and texts to reduce the risk of it being improperly accessed resulting in identity theft.
  • Never allow your internet webpage to save your password when accessing from a shared device, such as internet café.
  • Never click on a link from an unknown source or sender.

 

Any e-mails with links to sites that are requesting you to provide personal data are absolutely unauthorized, and not from Heritage Bank Limited. These requests should be ignored or deleted immediately. Heritage Bank Limited will never request our customers to send private and confidential information via email or text message.

What to do if your account is compromised?

  • Change password for online banking account immediately.
  • Contact bank instantaneously by method indicated below:
    • Email to services@heritageibt.com
    • Call Customer Service at phone number 501-223-6783/ 5698
    • Visit any of the Heritage Bank branch nearest to you.