I definitely understand the fears that come from fear mongering, and watching stuff spies can do on TV, and the like. So what users need is education and matter-of-fact reassurance to understand that realistically the most common ways for hackers to steal money from your bank account are to:

1) Email you claiming to be your bank, and telling you that for some urgent reason you need to click this link and login.  [The link is fake so when you "login" they now have your login details which they can then use to access your account.]

2) Send you a Facebook message claiming to be your daughter who's just been mugged and you need to urgently send them a Western Union transfer so they can get out of trouble.  [It's not your daughter and the person walks away with the money.]

3) Email you claiming to be your boss who's in a meeting with clients and wants to give them a present so needs you to urgently buy a lot of iTunes vouchers and email your boss the codes.  [It's not your boss and person walks away with the money.]

And so forth - you can see the pattern. Fraudsters don't hack into wifi networks, they just email a million people asking outright for passwords/money. If one or two confused souls comply then they've made an easy profit, no technical expertise required.

As long as the user is going to the bank's correct address, and has a strong password they haven't shared with anyone else or used on another website, then unless they're a character in a Hollywood spy thriller they're going to be fine.

Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of charles meyer
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2023 2:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] VPNs - free to low cost

Caution: This email originated from outside our organisation. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.


Deborah Fitchett wrote: <snip> So all your patron needs to do is make sure they go to the bank’s website, not some scammer’s. They don’t need any fancy extra services. …”

Patron is concerned about using a library hotspot in her home and connecting to her brick and mortar bank using the library’s free WIFI and having some hacker or nefarious character who’s profiled her hacking into her brick and mortar bank Web site. Then her worry is connecting to the online bank’s Web site (still on the library free WIFI) and her online bank account being compromised.

There has been a lot of fear mongering out there so people are afraid of going online to do any online banking.

Thank you,

Charles.

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