FOR YOUR OWN SECURITY YOU NEED A SECOND BANK ACCOUNT – NOW!
You should open at least one new bank account. Not a second account with your current bank, or even an account at a different branch of your normal bank. Open an account with a completely different bank company.
You need to do this as soon as possible, because there is a big risk that your current bank could be the victim of a cyber-attack and then you wouldn’t be able to get your money. One expert has even forecast that a major bank somewhere in the world could go bust because of a cyber-attack. Imagine if your bank would not give you access to your money for a week or more? That’s why you need a second account.
Banks are keeping their vulnerability secret
Banks don’t like to admit it, but, at any time, their computers could be attacked and put out of action for a week or even longer – and they will take days to fix the problem. Just imagine what that would mean for you – you couldn’t get your money from an ATM, you couldn’t use your credit or debit cards, you couldn’t pay your bills or receive your wages.
And there is another risk for you too. What would happen if your own personal account was hacked? Perhaps someone could manage to find your details and get access. Or a virus was used to steal your details. Or someone breaks into a bank’s system and then chooses your account to rob (this happened in the UK just last month). If there is a security problem with your account, your bank may take a week or more to accept that you are telling the truth – and while you are arguing with them that your account has been compromised, they will freeze your account.
Could either of things happen to you? We hope not, but this sort of thing is already happening to banks all over the world. Every day banks are being attacked. Sometimes the attackers just want to steal money from the bank itself. Sometimes they want to break into individual personal accounts. And sometimes hackers from countries like North Korea, China or Russia, launch attacks to try and stop our banking system working at all.
The threat to banks
Banks don’t want to admit that their computer systems can be attacked, so experts are certain that many attacks are not reported at all! Cyber-criminals who want to steal money love to attack bank systems because they can take so much money if they are successful (billions instead of millions).
You might think that banks would have great security systems, but cyber-criminals and foreign governments are constantly finding ways in. In 2013 North Korean hackers used a virus programme to try to close down ALL South Korean banks. For several days, bank transactions, business and personal payments were stopped and the South Korean economy was crippled.
In 2012, in the USA, hackers attacked some of the world’s biggest consumer banks. They wanted to stop the banks being able to work at all, by flooding the bank computers with huge numbers of fake transactions. They succeeded, and the banks had to shut down their websites and computers whilst they fixed the problem. People could not get their money.
Both of these attacks were sponsored by governments, but criminals just want to steal money. Just last year, in 2016, hackers in Bangladesh used simple and very cheap technology to break into the SWIFT system. This is the system that sends money between banks all over the world, for international payments. The hackers stole 81 million US dollars, but it could have been much more – the hackers made a typing error that meant most of their attack failed.
These major incidents were too big for banks to hide, but how many more attacks are covered up? How many times have you gone to an ATM and found it was not working? Was it broken, or was the bank under attack?
Attacks are increasing
Bank computer systems are not foolproof and they contain lots of security holes. That means banks can be attacked in many different way. The official figures for the UK, for example, say that attacks have increased by 1500% in just two years. Your bank is probably attacked several times a year. And if any attack succeeds, you could find that you can’t get more money or be able to pay for anything. That’s why you need the second account. If you have an account with another bank, then you should still have access to money even if your main bank is offline.
And remember that banks can’t always fix their problems quickly. They may not even tell the public they have a problem, and if there is a problem, it could take a week to fix.
The biggest worry of all is that one day, an entire bank could be taken down. In 2017, the chairman of the UK’s National Cyber Management Centre issued a warning: he said that he expects, “a major bank will fail as a result of a cyber attack”. He meant that the bank would go bust completely, because people would not trust it after it became victim of a huge attack. When a bank goes bust like this, the money held in accounts could be frozen for weeks whilst a rescue happens.
So please, make the decision to find a second bank, and go to open that second account. Make sure it has enough money in it to last you a week in an emergency, and ensure that you get an ATM card, online banking and any other service you will need from your normal account.
If you can make sure that you have a supply of cash. It is possible that an attack could take down the entire banking system. Or there could be a natural disaster that shuts down all electricity in your town or city. In either case, payment with cards will not be possible. So have some cash that you keep just for these sort of emergencies, so that you can buy food, drink or fuel you need to stay alive.
WHAT TO DO – SUMMARY
Open a new current account with a different bank.
Ensure it includes an ATM and a debit card.
Have enough money in it to cover at least a week’s worth of spending on essentials.