Protect Your Family

Staying safe online is a big job, but these resources and guidelines can help.

Internet Service Providers

When you’re choosing an Internet Service Provider (ISP), choose a reputable company with spam blockers and virus protection.

Social Networking

You want to be careful about revealing personal information, especially when you’re dealing with someone you don’t know.

• Be wary about revealing your complete name.
• Do not give your home address or phone number.
• Guard your personal information:
• Financial account numbers
• Credit/debit card numbers
• Social Security number
• Personal Identification Numbers (PINs)
• Passwords
• Understand how a social networking site works before using it.
• Be careful about meeting online friends in person.
• Know that criminals can use social media to defraud.
• Do not post pictures of your credit or debit cards.
• Be cautious in tags and comments. Referring to your vacation or a friend's vacation lets thieves know when a home may be empty.

Privacy settings may not make you as private as you think, and posted information cannot be completely erased.

Email

Email is a great way to communicate but take precautions to keep your identity safe.

Never:

• Reply to messages about the status of your bank or credit card accounts.
• Open attachments unless you know who sent them.
• Respond to unsolicited emails, even to have your name removed from a list.
• Pay for something that is supposed to be free.
• Send money to a person you only know online.
• Reveal personal information, like an account number, in a non-secure email.
• Follow links in unsolicited emails.
• Forward chain letters or virus warnings.

Always:

• Use filters to help protect from unsolicited email – spam.
• Type a web address into your browser rather than following email links.
• Do business only with companies you trust.
• Read the small print before you respond to any offer.
• Beware of emails using foreign languages or words that have been jumbled in order to bypass spam filters.

If it sounds too good to be true, requests personal information, or requests information urgently, do not respond. Contact CEFCU if you do respond to an email and provide personal account information.

Privacy

Read a company's privacy policy before doing business with it. The policy should include:

• What information is collected and why
• How information is collected
• How information will be used, including possible third-party distribution
• Choices available to control collection, use, and distribution of information and how to exercise them
• Consequences, if any, of your refusal to provide information
• Statement of commitment to data security
• How and whom to contact with privacy related questions or concerns

Kids & Teens

It's fun to surf the web and meet people, but not everyone you meet online is honest, so protect yourself.

Never:

• Give your complete name, address, phone number(s), school name, or other personal information.
• Choose a screen/user name that tells too much about you.
• Agree to meet face-to-face without your parent’s permission.
• Answer messages that have bad words or seem strange.
• Reply to emails or instant messages from people you do not know.
• Send a picture without a parent's permission.
• Call people you meet online without a parent's permission.
• Post anything you do not want seen by anyone, anywhere.
• Flirt with strangers.
• Give out your passwords, screen names, or user IDs — even to close friends.
• Pretend to be older so you can register at restricted sites.
• Add people to your friends/contacts list if you do not know them.

Let your parents know what sites you are visiting. If you are uncomfortable about anything you see online, leave the site right away and talk to your parents or a trusted adult about it.

Parental Guidelines

Know what your children are doing when they are online.

• Set clear guidelines, time limits, and restrictions for them.
• Do not allow Internet access in their bedrooms.
• Explain not everyone online is honest, so they should be cautious.
• Check to see if Web access at school is monitored by responsible adults.
• Go online with your kids, see what they have posted.
• Review your children's profiles with them.
• Maintain access to their online accounts.
• Consider installing blocking software for explicit or violent content.
• Ask questions about what they do online, who their friends are.
• Get to know their online friends and contacts.
• Do not let them claim to be older so they can register at age-restricted sites.
• Let them know to talk to you if anything makes them uncomfortable.
• Check the history of websites they have visited.

Contact CEFCU for more information, to report a lost or stolen card for a CEFCU account, or to report a suspicious email.