Internet banking popularity has surged in recent years because it is so convenient.  More and more people are logging on, paying bills, transferring funds and saving time.  The question is, how safe is your money?

Internet banking on the whole is very safe.  There is probably more chance of fraud occurring when handing your credit card over in a restaurant or paying for purchases over the phone.  But that's not to say that it's foolproof.  Virtually all financial institutions use 128 bit encryption and Secure Socket Layers (SSL) when you login and connect to internet banking.  SSL is a technology that is used for transferring data across the internet.  SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that is sent across the SSL connection.  In short this technology is very secure and can not be read by third parties that may be intercepting the data.

In most cases the weak link is you and your personal computer.  The majority of internet fraud and crime to do with banking is a result of phishing (no that is not a typo).  Phishing is where you are tricked into giving out your confidential information by a fraudster claiming to be a legitimate enterprise like your bank.  The most common phishing attacks are emails that are sent by fraudsters asking you to verify your internet banking login information.  Many of these emails can look very legitimate.  Your bank will never send you an email asking you to login and confirm any private information, so ignore these emails.  Another way fraudster's phish is with look a like webpages.  These are webpages that are designed to look identical to your banks and encourage you to login to internet banking so that a phisher can get your login information.  If you are taken to a webpage looking like your banks from a 3rd party link be very wary.  Always type your banks web address into your browser yourself.

Phishing is not the only threat when banking online.  Other internet security problems to do with banking include viruses and spyware.  Spyware is a type of software that covertly gathers a users private information through the users internet connection without their knowledge.  This software can transmit your private information to a 3rd party.

The best way to protect yourself against all of these threats while online is to use good antivirus software a firewall and antispyware.  The applications that I personally use and thoroughly recommend are as follows:

Antivirus:  Nod 32 by Eset available from www.eset.com  This is a compact and powerful antivirus software that has won many awards.  It protects your system in real time and its virus signature database is updated multiple times per day.  This ensures that you always have the most up to date virus protection.  A free trial version is available for dowload at Eset's webpage

Antispyware:  Spybot Search & Destroy by PepiMK Software available from www.safer-networking.org  Spybot Search & Destroy is a free program and has been voted best privacy software available by PC World and PCMag.com.  It is a spyware scanner that needs to be run on a regular basis to remove spyware from your system.  It also has a very large real time database that is constantly being updated.  This allows you to scan for the most recent of threats providing you update the program regularly.  As well as a spyware scanner it contains an immunise function that allows known threats to be blocked from internet explorer.

Firewall:  Zonelabs Security Suite by Zonelabs available from www.zonelabs.com  Zonelabs Security Suite is an Antivirus, Antispyware, and Firewall all rolled into one.  While I do not use the antivirus component of Zonelabs Security Suite I do find the firewall and spyware functions excellent.  Zonelabs has won multiple awards for its Security Suite software including PC Magazine Best of the Year.  A free firewall is also available from Zonelabls called Zone Alarm.  If you do not get the full Security Suite at least get this to help keep your personal computer safe.  This can be downloaded at Download.com.