Nearly three-quarters of Canadians aged between 15 to 34 feel they are at risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime, according to a survey by the major Canadian bank, TD Canada Trust.
Of these so-called millennials, 94 per cent own smartphones. The devices may contain an abundance of personal data and may be used for bank transactions, finding directions or updating social media feeds.
The survey suggests 23 per cent of millennials don’t use a password to lock their phones.
Protect your device, urges bank
The bank warns millennials are particularly vulnerable to fraud if they don’t use simple measures to protect devices. For example, the survey found 23 per cent do not use the screen-lock password feature on their device.
A further 67 per cent use the same password or one that is only slightly different perhaps adding a number to a letter-based password. One in five will keep a list of passwords stored on their device.
Complicate your password, change often, says bank
“It is critical that both consumers and financial institutions work together to fight fraud,” says a news release from the bank. It advises people to use different user ID/password combinations for different accounts and avoid writing them down. It suggests making them more complicated by combining letters, numbers and special characters and changing them on a regular basis. (It does not suggest however, how you can remember them all.)
The bank also urges people to lock their phones and enable auto-locks so that the device locks after a short period of time if it is not used. If a device is lost and is unprotected, financial institutions should be immediately be notified and passwords changed.
Got your phone back? Be careful anyway
Even if a device is lost, then recovered, the bank warns banking information may have been compromised and people should look out for any suspicious activity by asking the bank to notify them of potential fraud and carefully checking their accounts.
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