Protect Your Accounts

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Use the following tips to protect your First Secure State Banks account:

Safely access the First Secure State Banks website or your First Secure State Banks account by opening up a new web browser and type in the following: "https://www.thestatebankgroup.com/"

Never give out the following information in an email:

First name, last name, business name
Email and password combination
Credit card, bank account, and PIN
Social security and driver's license number

Do not download attachments, software updates, or any application to your computer via a link you received in an email. First Secure State Banks will not ask you to download anything for your account to work.

Choose a unique password and change it every 30-60 days.

Phishing Scams

A rapidly growing form of Internet fraud is a practice known as "phishing." The purpose of this is to familiarize you with the characteristics of phishing.

Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent email messages to addresses requesting them to supply confidential information. The message is most often mass-mailed or "spammed" to thousands of potential victims. The email is disguised to look like a request from a legitimate organization such as a bank or credit card company with which recipients may already have a business relationship. Messages purporting to be from eBay or PayPal are also very common. Often the message includes a warning regarding a problem related to the recipient's account and requests the recipient to respond by providing specific confidential information. The format of this email typically includes proprietary logos and branding, a "From" line disguised to appear as if the message came from a legitimate sender, and a link to a website or an email address. All of these features are designed to assure the recipient that the email is from a legitimate business source when in fact, the information submitted will be sent to the perpetrator.

Victims may be directed to provide personal account information by responding to the email, or they may be directed to click on a link that takes them to a legitimate looking webpage containing a form on which they are instructed to provide the information. Typically, the information requested includes items such as account numbers, passwords, PINs, Social Security numbers or other personal identifying information that will allow the perpetrator to gain access to the victim's accounts, steal the victim's identity, sell the information to others seeking to do the same, or all of these.

What Can You Do?

Read the above information closely and fully understand the impact on yourself.

Do not reply. Instead, contact the company using a website address you KNOW to be genuine.
Avoid emailing personal and financial information.
Review credit card and bank account statements as soon as you receive them for unauthorized activity.
Better yet, use any form of online banking to keep up-to-date on your accounts more frequently than monthly.
Use virus protection software at home and make sure it is automatically kept up-to-date.
Use a hardware or software-based firewall at home, and make sure it is automatically kept up-to-date.
Use a spyware detection tool at home, and keep it up-todate.
Don't open unknown email attachments EVER.
Don't run programs of unknown origin.
Make regular backups of critical data.
Keep all applications (including your operating system) patched.

Consumer Tips

Never give out your personal financial information in response to an unsolicited phone call, fax or email, no matter how official it may seem.
Do not respond to email that may warn of dire consequences if you do not validate your information immediately. Contact the company to confirm the email's validity using a telephone number or website you know to be genuine. Clicking on a link could give a criminal access to your personal information.
Check your credit card and bank account statements regularly and look for unauthorized transactions, even small ones. Some thieves hope small transactions will go unnoticed. Report discrepancies immediately.
When submitting financial information on a website, look for the padlock or key icon at the top or bottom of your browser, and make sure the Internet address begins with "https." This signals that your information is secure during transmission.
Report suspicious activity to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center at www.ic3.gov.