Texas Bank Warns Of New Scams Targeting Your Cash

The fear that your personal information is at risk of falling into criminal hands is never something you want to worry about, which is why a popular credit union in Texas is offering advice to avoid cyber-criminals seeking to steal your money.

Phishing and Smishing Scams in Texas

According to Texans Credit Union, some members are being targeted with sophisticated schemes aimed at stealing personal info and account credentials.

The most common scams have the silliest names: phishing and smishing. You've most likely heard of these scams before. These are where scammers send emails or texts claiming that your account is compromised, followed by a call to action to click a malicious link.

There are other techniques used by cyber-criminals that you may not have heard of, such as phone spoofing and social engineering.

What Is Phone Spoofing and Social Engineering?

Phone spoofing is where scammers call you and pretend to be bank employees. Major red flags are when they ask for personal information out of the blue. An easy fix to this is to hang up and call the bank contact number on your account page. Here you can verify if the previous call was legitimate or not.

I actually have done this in the past, and believe me, it saves you many headaches down the road by double-checking if you spoke with a scammer or not.

Social engineering requires more work from scammers. This is where they'll take your personal information on your social media pages like your date of birth, where you work, and even your home address, and use it to reset your banking credentials and take over your accounts.

A good way to combat social engineering scammers is to set up multi-factor authentication like a unique PIN or fingerprint scanning.

Fraud tactics will be around for as long as online banking is a thing. So, it's important to watch for the signs and protect your bank accounts from the bad guys looking to wreak havoc.