techiners.in: Security, Risks and Tips for Credit Cards

Security, Risks and Tips for Credit Cards

In the previous post we have seen the logic behind a 16 digit credit card numbers. Besides learning and understanding the logic behind a 16 digit credit card number and how much vital information those 16 or more digits conveys, it’s also equally important to safeguard that vital information.

Let’s now delve into the security of credit/debit cards, risk associated with credit/debit cards, and yes the use of credit/debit cards i.e., how can you benefit more by using credit/debit cards.

Credit Card Security:

1. As we have seen in the previous post what all information your credit card numbers contains, so it’s important to never share your credit card numbers with any unknown person or entity or claiming to be a bank representative. Doing so will reveal about your card issuer, merchant identifier, and most importantly a small chunk of digits from your bank account number associated with your card.

2. In case your number is shared, you still have a chance to protect your card by keeping your CVV secret. Never share your CVV with anyone be it face to face, telephony or online(most important).

3. While doing online transactions just keep in mind not to check the checkbox for saving your credit card details with the merchant for future transactions. You can enter the details again while doing the transactions (Don’t be lazy if you want your money safe). Saved credit card details at merchant side though in encrypted form are still vulnerable to hackers who in turn can decrypt the same and do transactions on your behalf.

4. Don’t even share the Expiry Date as it is required while doing online transactions.

5. Setup your Credit Card PIN and keep it safe. Never write it down better memorize it or you can use trusted online portal like LastPass.

6. Don’t share your card details on social media platform such as Facebook (remember Analytica in America), Twitter, WhatsApp, Hike, or others.

7. Never save your card information on the browser prompt that ask you to save the information when you enter during transaction. It’s stored in plain text format and anybody who has access to your PC or Mobile will get to know the passwords saved in your browser through temporary files.

Risks associated with Credit Cards:

An example of Phishing Attack : Demo Web Page of a Bank

1. There are many phishing attacks on bank portals by the hackers to steal your CRN and passwords, or customer id and passwords. Always check the url of the bank portal while visiting it or logging into the system. It should use https rather than http. Read more about http and https.

2. If you are doing transactions from your own system, just make sure that your system is always updated and have an anti-virus running.

3. There are many mails coming on your mail id imposing official bank mails but are not exactly from. Make sure to check the mail address before clicking anywhere on mail body. Do not even click on any images or links or buttons e.g., You are receiving mail because you have been subscribed to our newsletter, if you do not want to receive any mail click unsubscribe. Even clicking on unsubscribe will let the hackers steal all your mail account information, the system you are logged on, your IP address, MAC Address, etc.

How to benefit more from credit cards?

1. Register yourself for reward points at the merchant bank. This will let your earn reward points on all the outlets that merchant bank is associated to. You can redeem your reward points thus earning an ample amount of rewards.

2. There are more cashback offers on credit cards rather than debit cards earning up to 20% or more.

3. One of the advantage of paying via credit card is you will get 45 days of credit to repay the amount to the bank.

4. Using your credit cards more at every transactions (small or big) will earn you the trust of banks and hence the offer to increase your credit limit.

Tips:

1. While doing online transactions, use your credit card rather than debit card, as in case of any mishap, it will be bank who will loose the money and not you.

2. Avoid delayed payments of credit card bills or else you will end up paying more interest to the bank.

3. All your credit card numbers along with phone numbers of customer service should be stored in a safe place, probably some encrypted software as mentioned in Credit Card Security (Point 5).

Note:

Author is not responsible for any kind of loss, debt, theft or other online harm caused due to any or all of the steps mentioned above in the post followed by you.