In Nigeria, there has been a rise in one aspect of financial fraud – cyber criminals hacking into customers’ accounts and stealing funds using technology.
In some cases, it may be difficult for banks to trace how the theft actually happened.
This scenario creates integrity issues within the financial system.
But do you know that bank customers can actually secure their accounts by using authentication codes and verified websites to prevent cyber criminals from gaining access into their accounts.
Emmanuel Ezenwere, an Entrepreneur and Artificial Intelligence Engineer, explains further.
“One needs to have secure platform of banking, if you want to pay into a person’s account, you need a confirmation code from the person that is receiving. Without the confirmation code from that mobile phone, you are not going to be able to withdraw that amount,” he says.
“So, having double authentication where both the sender and receiver send codes during transaction makes it impossible for hackers into an account.
“The other way is to use more secure websites or web platforms as customer, one is to always verify the site you are trying to make a purchase.”
He explained that one way to do this was to go through what people were saying about such a website, “check the peoples’ reputation and their views about the website.
“So, if you see something new, you don’t just shop from any web application. You have to make sure that other people have used that application and they don’t have complains.”
Ezenwere added that another way customers could protect their accounts from criminals was by ensuring that they do all their transactions with their own device only.
“If you use someone else’s device, do not save your account details because they can always bring up that option and
save the transaction details.
“So, don’t save transaction details. Open a private browser, do your transaction and then it ends there.
“That way, your transaction details are not saved on another person’s device.”
The ICT engineer also urged banks to employ good ICT experts that could help to build strong system that would be
impossible for hackers to manipulate, thereby building strong financial systems.