Doing Money Transactions With IOS Safely

Our phones have quickly become much more than devices used to call one another. In fact, phones have developed so much that most people would consider using it to call people almost a foreign idea, with the popularity of texting and all of the apps now available.

It could be said that our lives are becoming increasingly centralized in that there's almost nothing you can't use your phone to do. This applies to managing your finances and going over online banking. Many iOS users have now elected to pay their bills and go over their financial situations using their iOS devices like iPhones and iPads. With the increasing understanding that our data is valuable and not always extremely secure, the question now is whether or not that is a safe practice. In practice keeping your information safe on your phone is very similar to keeping it safe on a PC, but there are definitely some things to consider:

Avoid using public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi networks are notoriously under protected and all it takes is one other person with the right software that is usually very easily obtainable to be able to sniff out many of your personal details. The information being sent through the Wi-Fi network might be just enough to compromise your financial accounts and there's very little you can do to prevent it short of making sure everything is encrypted. If you have to use public Wi-Fi for financial transactions, avoid using it in extremely busy places like airports or large places where the chances of malicious users might be higher.

Only send money through trusted services

With the billions of dollars that flow through the internet every day, many people are clamoring to get a piece of the pie. Not everyone however is willing to do so legitimately. The main points of failure are the user themselves and the servers that are handling the transaction. That's why, if you are sending money you should only use either a bank's mobile app or a money transfer service that doesn't store any of your card information on their servers. Make sure that whatever service you're using that handles real money is reputable and follows modern security etiquette for protecting your information.

Avoid phishing

Phishing is the simple process in which a fake link is sent to a user and brings them with a carbon-copy of a website they frequently use and login to. The difference is that their version of the site isn't functional and once you enter your login details on this fake site, it goes straight to the scammers. It's essentially handing over the keys to the castle and many people don't even realize they've been duped. The easiest way to avoid phishing is to not click any links sent to you via email or that you've found online. Type in web addresses manually or bookmark the legitimate site and only access it via that bookmark.

Many people out there would like to take advantage of all of the financial data that is floating around there, thanks to the heavy adoption of mobile phones. These people usually aren't sophisticated hackers that will go extremely far to get your details, they are mainly looking for low hanging fruit that will equal a quick and untraceable payday. So long as you make yourself harder to take advantage of than 90% of the population, it's much more likely that they'll focus on an easier mark instead of you.