Customer Education Center

Be Aware of False Google Ads

An emerging trend used by cybercriminals is the purchasing of Google Ads that link to a fraudulent website in an attempt to steal login credentials to a financial institution's online banking website.

How does it work?

The criminals create a fraudulent site that looks exactly like the legitimate online banking site. They then purchase Google Ads with a stolen identity and link these ads to the fraudulent site. Customers then perform a search for their institutions website and the first result will be the Google Ad. Once the customer has clicked on the link, they proceed to the login page where they enter their username and password. Once they have entered their credentials, they are presented with what appears to be an error message or something similar. At this point, the criminals now have the online banking credentials and can access the customers online banking account.

How can I protect myself?

The simplest way to protect yourself against this type of fraud is to simply bookmark or favorite the institutions website. When you need to access the site, simply click on the bookmark or favorite and know that you will be taken to the legitimate site. Another way to help ensure you are accessing the legitimate site is to type in the URL of the site in the address bar. For First State Bank of DeQueen customers, you can type "fsbdequeen.com" in the address bar and access our site directly.

If you do perform a search to find our website, do not click on any Ads. These are typically denoted with the word "Ad" immediately before the website name.

What should I do if I feel I have fallen victim to this?

Contact your financial institution immediately. They can reset your password which should block access using your credentials, or they can disable your account altogether. Once this is done, continue to monitor your account for any suspicious activity. If there are transactions that are suspicious, report them to you institution immediately.

Cyber Security Updates

As our lives become busier and busier, it's becoming more important to have access to our banks at all hours of the day. While technology allows us to achieve that goal, it also opens us up to the threat of identity theft and fraud. At First State Bank of DeQueen, we take the protection of you and your information very seriously and have put in place many safeguards to provide that protection. In addition to those safeguards that we have in place, there are additional steps that YOU can take to help insure that you have a safe online experience.

The Customer Education Center is designed to provide you with tips and resources you can use to protect yourself not only during your online banking session, but when accessing any website. We are committed to making sure you have a safe online experience. Below are some simple steps that you can take to make your online experience safer:

Use a respected anti-virus/anti-malware product and keep it up-to-date.
Keep your operating system patched and up-to-date.
Use an updated browser when browsing the internet.
Never open attachments or click on links in email's that you were not anticipating.
Never give out your account credentials through an email.
Change your passwords periodically.
Avoid using the same password for multiple accounts.
Only visit trusted websites.

Following the steps above will help you have a more secure browsing experience.

FTC introduces new Cybersecurity Resources for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

On October 18, 2018, the Federal Trade Commission launched a new website for small and medium sized businesses that provides them with many resources to help prevent cyber attacks. We encourage you to visit the site and see many of the simple ways you can help protect your business against a cyber attack.

Guard Against Phishing Emails

In the world of cyber-crime, phishing has become the most effective way in which criminals can still someone's identity. While we are not talking about your grandfather's type of fishing, the concept is essentially the same. Criminals send out specifically crafted emails that look like legitimate emails, from say FedEx or UPS, or perhaps a retailer you shop with. Within the email could be an attachment or a link that takes you to a malicious site that looks just like the real thing. If you open the attachment, it will attempt to download malicious code to your computer. If you click on the link, it will try to download malicious code to your computer through a vulnerability in your browser. They send out thousands of emails attempting to get a few "bites", just like your grandfather did! So what do you do? Quit receiving email? Stay off the internet? Unfortunately, many of us are entrenched in the internet so getting off of it entirely is out of the question. You can follow some of these steps to help reduce your risk:

If you were not expecting the email, don't click on any links or open any attachments. Just delete it!
If you are unsure if a link is safe, you can normally hover over the link and it will give you the website it's going to take you to. If this site looks nothing like the company that sent you the email, it's probably bad news.
Inspect the link carefully. Sometimes the website it takes you to closely resembles the actual site it claims to take you to, with just one or two letters being off in the name.
Check for misspelled words within the email. These types of email normally contain many misspelled words or sentences that just don't make sense.
If the email sounds too good to be true, chances are it probably is.
Keep your computers patches up-to-date. If you are using Windows, turn on Automatic Updates and set it to automatically install them.
Use an anti-virus product and keep it up to date.

Resources

Report Identity Theft
If you have been the victim of Identity Theft, you can report it here.