In a survey by AICPA, 25% of Americans say they have been victims of cyber attacks. This number has drastically increased since last year, and consumers are getting increasingly worried. The attacks are enough to change 82% of consumers’ spending habits to cash or check. Forty percent even noted cutting online spending to avoid the risk of attack.

People are becoming more and more concerned with their financial well-being and the safety of online shopping or bill paying. Consumers need to take steps to secure their financial information and especially be aware of their online data. Having financial information breeched could greatly affect credit scores, thus limiting the ability to get a loan, mortgage or credit cards.

Steps can be taken to protect consumers from financial cyber attacks. Take note of these for your clients to help protect them from a detrimental financial situation.

Explore bank and credit card company security features to add to your account

Many banks provide protective features to ensure cyber security for their customers. Having security through banks and credit card companies usually reimburses customers with money lost as well.

Avoid shopping over insecure online connections

Many customers willingly give scam websites financial information without even knowing it. The Internet is flooded with online shopping scams to easily steal people’s information. Only use trusted sites, and flag them if any odd activity happens to an account.

Create fraud alerts on credit reports

Credit reports are an important thing to protect. Setting up alerts for when changes are made is a great way to stay in the know with credit scores and credit fraud.

Sourced from The Journal of Accountancy.