Are Egg's Online Banking Services Safe?
According to Egg, their new Egg Money service that lets you gain more money when you spend less is the "new way to look after your money online." That sounds like a great service, but will your money be secure with Egg?
When you join Egg and login for the first time, you will notice how tight the security is for their online banking accounts. They will ask you for the information you used when you signed up for an online banking account. This looks great, but how secure is it?
Most of the information can be received and used by almost any body. All they need is five minutes of your time. The login will require your first name and surname, your date of birth, and your zip code. Egg will then ask two security questions to make sure that it is you. They will ask for your mother's maiden name and your "special password," which will allow you to login in the event that you lose your real password.
That is all you need to login to your Egg online banking account, which is why some are apprehensive about joining Egg and other online banks with similar levels of security. All of the information-other than your password-is very easy to crack. And even passwords can be easy to crack, as people often use the same password for email accounts and other accounts. This means that if a hacker cracks any of these accounts at some point, they can access all of your accounts.
Egg obviously warns customers about this, but many people do not heed it, as they do not want to be bothered to remember another password.
Egg should step up their security quickly. They have a lot of customers and a lot of money stored in their online banking accounts-and if they cannot guarantee safety, this will spell trouble if a hacker or phisher concentrates on scamming Egg account owners.
For now, if you plan to use Egg or any online banking for that matter, you should create a new password for your account and take measures to obscure the rest of your data. This will ensure that your information remains safe and your money remains in your account.
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