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Online Safety

One of the best defens­es to falling vic­tim of scams and fraud is to become an edu­cat­ed con­sumer. We want to pro­vide our mem­bers with the nec­es­sary cyber secu­ri­ty infor­ma­tion and tips to insure their per­son­al infor­ma­tion is kept safe.

Safeguard Your Information

Sun­belt Fed­er­al Cred­it Union will NEV­ER call, email, or text you to request your per­son­al account infor­ma­tion – like a one time pass­code, your deb­it card num­ber or PIN, your account infor­ma­tion or your cloud bank­ing cre­den­tials.

Sun­belt pri­or­i­tizes the secu­ri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of our mem­bers’ per­son­al infor­ma­tion. We are strong­ly com­mit­ted to keep­ing your per­son­al infor­ma­tion pri­vate by enforc­ing strict inter­nal secu­ri­ty sys­tems, encrypt­ing con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion, lim­it­ing infor­ma­tion shared with our third-par­ty ven­dors, and con­tin­u­ous­ly edu­cat­ing our employ­ees on the rapid­ly chang­ing scam­ming techniques.

How to Stay Safe in Cyberspace

Here are some great tips and infor­ma­tion that can help you stay safe online.

Phish­ing scams attempt to trick you into pro­vid­ing sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion by pre­tend­ing to be a trust­ed source. These scams often come in the form of emails, phone calls, or text mes­sages that appear to be from legit­i­mate institutions.

How to Pro­tect Yourself:

  • Nev­er click on links or down­load attach­ments from unknown or sus­pi­cious emails.
  • Ver­i­fy the sender by con­tact­ing the com­pa­ny direct­ly using a trust­ed phone number.
  • Look for warn­ing signs such as urgent lan­guage, mis­spellings, or unfa­mil­iar links.

Iden­ti­ty theft occurs when some­one steals your per­son­al infor­ma­tion to com­mit fraud, such as open­ing accounts in your name.

How to Pro­tect Yourself:

  • Use strong, unique pass­words for each of your accounts.
  • Mon­i­tor your cred­it report reg­u­lar­ly for any unau­tho­rized activity.
  • Shred sen­si­tive doc­u­ments before dis­pos­ing of them.

Card skim­ming involves crim­i­nals installing devices on ATMs or pay­ment ter­mi­nals to steal card information.

How to Pro­tect Yourself:

  • Use ATMs in well-lit, secure locations.
  • Cov­er the key­pad when enter­ing your PIN.
  • Reg­u­lar­ly check your account state­ments for unau­tho­rized transactions.

Device Secu­ri­ty:

  • Keep your com­put­er, smart­phone, and oth­er devices updat­ed with the lat­est secu­ri­ty patches.
  • Install and main­tain reli­able antivirus software.
  • Avoid using pub­lic Wi-Fi for bank­ing transactions

Online Bank­ing:

  • Enable mul­ti-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion (MFA) for an extra lay­er of security.
  • Log out of your accounts when finished.
  • Use bio­met­ric authen­ti­ca­tion (fin­ger­print or facial recog­ni­tion) when available.
  • Mon­i­tor account activ­i­ty – such as login activ­i­ty and transactions.
  • If you sus­pect your online bank­ing account has been com­pro­mised, imme­di­ate­ly change your pass­word and con­tact Sunbelt.

Rec­og­niz­ing Fraud or Sus­pi­cious Activity

  • Reg­u­lar­ly review your trans­ac­tions and state­ments for any pay­ments that may be out of the ordinary.
  • Peri­od­i­cal­ly check your accoun­t’s login activ­i­ty for any login attempts made from unknown IPs or devices.

If you sus­pect fraud­u­lent activ­i­ty, act quickly:

  • Con­tact Sun­belt Fed­er­al Cred­it Union immediately.
  • Report sus­pi­cious emails or mes­sages to Sun­belt Fed­er­al Cred­it Union.
  • Noti­fy the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC) or your local law enforcement.

By stay­ing vig­i­lant and fol­low­ing these safe­ty mea­sures, you can help pro­tect your­self from fraud and online threats. 

Remem­ber, Sun­belt Fed­er­al Cred­it Union will NEV­ER call, email, or text you to request your per­son­al account infor­ma­tion – like a one time pass­code, your deb­it card num­ber or PIN, your account infor­ma­tion or your cloud bank­ing credentials.

STAY SAFE. STAY INFORMED.