Cybersecurity has become extremely important nowadays. Securing oneself while making online banking transactions is an absolute necessity. As cyber threats are increasing daily, it is a question for all of us—how should we safeguard ourselves then?

But, if we look into past cybercrimes, there are a couple of methods that are most commonly used by criminals to perpetrate cybercrimes. And, if we take a couple of simple steps, we can safeguard ourselves up to a great extent. Let’s look at some simple steps that we can easily take to safeguard ourselves while making an online banking transaction:

1. Look at the green bar in the URL

Before logging into a banking website, look at the URL in the address bar of the browser. Does it show a green-colored padlock in the URL? A green-colored padlock in the URL actually indicates an HTTPS connection instead of a regular HTTP one. An HTTPS connection means all the data that are transferred between your computer and the banking server, are encrypted before it is sent across. So, even if anyone intercepts the connection in the middle and listens to it, he would not be able to decrypt and read the data that are being transferred.

If we hover the mouse on the green padlock, it will show the name of the entity that has verified the authenticity of the website, followed by the name of the company or bank that owns the website. As it is very difficult for cybercriminals to forge this, verifying the HTTPS connection before logging into the banking website can greatly protect us from online fraud.

2. Use a strong password

It is extremely important to use a strong password on a banking website. A strong password should be at least 10-12 characters long and contain uppercase and lowercase characters, numbers, and at least one special character like @, $, #,! %, etc. A strong password can make the life of criminals considerably difficult if they want to access the bank account of a user by hacking passwords. Interested readers will get more information on how to create a memorable and strong password in How to create a memorable and strong password?

3. Use a script blocker

Cybercriminals often use scripts to perpetrate all the crimes. They trick a user into clicking on a link, opening an attachment, or downloading something and running a script in the background, which does all the evil jobs for them. And, a feasible way to prevent that is to block unnecessary scripts from executing in the browser.

There are a number of script blockers available that one can install as a browser extension. If a …