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Your personal information is valuable and needs to be
protected from online identity thieves who seek to steal this information,
according to the Australian Bankers Association (ABA).

The ABA has joined with other organisations to support the Federal Government's
E-security Awareness Week which promotes smart and safe Internet use.
David Bell, Chief Executive of the ABA, said banks are supporting this initiative
because they agree that education is one of the key weapons in the fight against
cybercrime, such as scams and hoax emails.

'Education is vital to ensuring people are aware of the steps they can take to
minimise their exposure to becoming a victim of crime.'

'Also, banks invest in a range of security measures to protect customers from
criminal activities. They can monitor transactions on a customer's account and, if
a transaction is identified as being suspicious, will investigate to ensure there is no breach of security. Occasionally, when this happens the bank will contact the customer to verify a transaction,' he said.

Banks are continuing to improve security for customers, especially for online banking. Recent measures have included advances in monitoring customer and transaction patterns and intelligence on criminals and their activities, advances in
the encryption of customer data, use of on-screen keypads - designed to prevent
the incidence of keystroke logging fraud, use of security tokens and SMS alerts to telephones.

All of these steps by banks aim to provide their customers with an extra layer of security for protection and to reduce the potential for unauthorised access to customer accounts or the risk of becoming the victim of identity theft.

Mr Bell said there are steps people can take to make the criminal's job harder and
to help spare you the inconvenience of becoming a victim of criminal or
fraudulent activity.

'Beware of hoax e-mails purporting to be from your bank, asking for you to
update your personal information such as PINs and Internet banking logon details which should remain confidential. Your bank will never e-mail you to ask you for this confidential information.'

'Customers should also beware of websites that ask for these details. These will
often redirect you to a replica of your bank's website. Such websites are set up by fraudsters and criminals to steal the customer's information.'

'Be careful of identity information that you publish on your social networking
webpage, for example, your date and place of birth and your address are important pieces of information which identity thieves may try to exploit.

Information relating to your birth date in particular is a piece of information which
is specific to you and cannot be changed. Once stolen by an identity thief, that type of information may arm a thief with the potential to commit further fraud. It is important that customers make sure that they do all they can to prevent fraudsters obtaining this information,' he said.

Tips to protect your financial identity
- Don't provide your PIN or Internet banking login or password to anyone;
- Delete spam and scam e-mail - if the offer sounds too good to be true - it
probably is;
- Keep your anti-virus and firewall software up-to-date;
- Always logon to Internet banking by typing in your bank's full web
address, i.e. the URL;
- Don't use public computers for Internet banking e.g. Internet cafes,
libraries or hotels;
- Guard the following identity information carefully and only provide to
trusted people and entities: date of birth, current address, driver's licence
number and passport details.