As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect opportunity to revisit online security best practices. With the holiday shopping season quickly approaching, more than 70% of Americans are gearing up to take advantage of online deals during Black Friday. This surge in online activity brings increased risks to personal information and financial security.

At EBC, the safety and security of client and participant data is a top priority. While we use industry-recognized fraud prevention practices, you also play an important role in fraud prevention. Here are some best practices for not only your EBC account but any online account you have. Consider passing along this downloadable resource to your participants to help them keep their accounts secure as well.

1. Create a long, complex, and unique password.

Password cracking isn’t as complex as it seems. At its core, cracking software is just guessing—very quickly, but still guessing. Computers don’t care about what characters you use, rather how long your password is. The longer the password, the more guesses they need.

Take these examples:

• FIDODOG1 would take about 1-2 minutes to crack.
• F1D0D@G1! would take around 8-10 hours to crack.
• Findoisthebestdogever1! would take decades or even centuries to crack using modern technology, because of its length.

Instead of struggling with random characters, try using a passphrase—a sentence that’s easy for you to remember but long enough to be secure.

Outside of creating long and complex passwords, consider creating unique passwords for all accounts. This is especially true for financial accounts, which would be more harmful if someone were to gain access to them. We recommend you create a unique password for your EBC online account that’s different than any other password you use. This is because if your password was leaked from another system, it could be used to gain access to your other online accounts, including your EBC account.

2. Monitor your transactions.

Just as it’s a best practice to monitor bank statement or credit card transactions, participants should also check their benefit transactions regularly through the mobile app or their online account to verify transactions were made by themself or their family member(s). If any suspicious activity is detected, participants should lock their Benefits Card using the EBCentral app app to prevent further use of their account and report it to our Participant Services Team.

3. Keep an eye on emails and alerts.

EBC sends an email when account information is changed, such as contact information, banking information, or security questions. If you receive an email with updates you didn’t make, you should immediately contact your Client Account Representative, or our Participant Services Team so we can temporarily lock the account and work with you to secure it.

4. Set up multi-factor authentication.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a multi-step login process that requires more than just a password to access your account. Clients and participants are required to enroll in MFA, which uses either a phone number or email to provide an extra layer of security. This additional step makes it much more difficult for unauthorized users to gain access. In fact, enabling MFA can block up to 99.9% of unauthorized access attempts. For this reason, we strongly encourage all participants to always keep MFA enabled for enhanced security.  In addition to MFA, all online account users are required to set up security questions when their account is created. These security questions provide an additional way to verify your identity if a user forgets their username or password. These extra steps significantly improve protection against unauthorized access and helps ensure your account stays secure.

Share these tips!

By implementing these best practices, you and your participants can significantly reduce your risk of security exposure. We encourage you to pass along our downloadable resource to your participants that outlines the above security best practices to ensure everyone is staying secure this season.