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What a breach taught me

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By Rena

I was checking my bill over the weekend, and was horrified that my credit card had been used for a shopping spree. Someone had apparently used my card and swiped it for A WEEK prior to me noticing it. It was scary how vulnerable things are. Apart from my credit card being used, someone also attempted to get into my PayPal account. This, was detected by Paypal and they sent me an email with a notification of a suspicious activity. 

So, the first thing I did was obviously to call the bank and cancel the card. And dispute the charges. It will take up to 90 days for such dispute. 

Next thing I did was to relook at what I have. 

This incident taught me one thing - the importance of notifications. I used to think that since a bank has been sending me notification on promotions and so on, they would be sending me notifications on my transaction. No. Do a check on your credit card, and make sure you set a notification for this! I could have detected this unauthorised activity a week ago had I put on this notification.

Next, relook at your credit card limits. Usually we simply use the default credit card limit, and this limit could be huge. If you won't spend till that limit all the time, why bother having such a high limit? And you could always change the credit limit whenever you want. 

I have very few credit cards. And well, I'm glad it's so. But I'm thinking of increasing the number of cards. You see, this is not the first time my card was being used for others' shopping, but this is the first time that the amount was ridiculously high. What I do realise is the credit card that are being used fraudulently, are often the ones that I use for online purchases. So, I'm going to set up a card just for online purchases, with a super small limit. Hopefully, the bank lets me have such a limit.

So, if you are interested in credit card, check out this link here on some credit card deals from SingSaver [disclaimer: Affiliate link]. Anyway, I like that the offer gives me an option that I could get an Apple Watch or $300 cash if I spend minimum $200 within the next 30 days of card approval (simple considering Chinese New Year is near).

We sometimes use Facebook, or Google or whatever for sign- ins into multiple platform. While this reduces the hassle to remember so many logins and passwords, once one account is hacked in, many associated with it will be. So, set up an account for non- essentials, and use another account for things that are important to you (the email that you use for your banks, etc.). Google is awesome, and it allows you to have so many account. Why keep to one then?

Platforms like Google allow 2FA (2- factor authentication). So for important email accounts (e.g. email address use for money related items), always activate 2FA.

And finally, no system is impenetrable in this day and age. So, have a backup plan on what to do if that system is compromised (e.g. phone number to dial and so on). Contingency plan! And, for platforms that do not allow you to contact them if they are down, or the way to stop the compromise is too difficult,  and the consequences are significant, don't use them.




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