South African bank warns against cybercrimes

South African First National Bank (FNB) on Wednesday called on people to be careful of hackers while accessing their banks using public Wi-Fi.

“Consumers accessing free public Wi-Fi networks can potentially fall victim to cybercrime as fraudsters can get access to their passwords, personal and banking information,” said FNB head of digital banking Giuseppe Virgillito on Wednesday.

He called on the people not to log into internet banking profiles or entering credit card details with a free public Wi-Fi network but use mobile network data.

“While not all free public Wi-Fi networks are unsafe, you can never be absolutely certain that they aren’t compromised. Criminals have the ability to hack into free public Wi-Fi networks and use sophisticated hacking techniques like installing keylogging spyware to view and steal the information that you enter online,” he said.

Virgillito called on the people to be careful when logging into social networks with free public Wi-Fi networks as fraudsters can get access to personal information and use it for illegal purposes. Enditem