Happy New Year to each one of you!  While 2023 was a challenging year, it was also filled with many joyous moments.  Part of that joy came from serving our customers and our communities throughout the last year, both by providing financial products and services that meet our customer’s needs, but also by giving back.  Our Team here at First National Bank of Moose Lake helped with the Carlton County Ride Safe program to teach students in our Barnum, Moose Lake, and Willow River communities the importance of wearing safety equipment and how to safely ride recreational vehicles, cleaned up litter from our area road ditches, supported many community fundraisers and initiatives, and served hot dogs and root beer to our customers during customer appreciation day, just to name a few ways in which we contributed.  This is part of why I love First National Bank of Moose Lake – We give back to our communities in which we work, live, and play!

Another thing that comes with a new year are New Year’s resolutions, or goals for the new year!  While this may seem daunting to some, I urge you to look at it in a different way.  Ask yourself “How can my friendly bankers at First National Bank of Moose Lake help me reach some of my goals throughout the next year?”  I’m here to help answer some of those questions for you:  Do you need a checking or savings account to help you save for a purchase?  Maybe you are seeking a CD or higher-interest account to help you build your wealth?  Are you seeking to make a personal or business purchase and need a loan?  No matter what your goals are for 2024, let us here at FNBML partner with you.  After all, we are here to “lend a helping hand”!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with this question: Do you get too many bank statements via mail?  If so, just take 1 minute, log into your online account with FNBML, and opt into e-statements.  It’s that quick, and that easy!  Not only will it help prevent your information from being stolen by criminals, but it also helps save trees and paper waste!  It also helps prevent your husband, wife, or significant other from getting upset with that stack of papers laying around on the kitchen table 😊

Come talk to one of our friendly team members here at your community Bank to see how we can partner with you in 2024 to make your goals a reality!  Wishing you all a Happy New Year, and a blessed 2024!

Dan

What is phishing? Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone, or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive information such as personal information, banking and credit card details, and passwords (www.phishing.org).

Anybody can be a victim of a scam and noticing the signs can help prevent identity theft and financial loss. Below are 10 red flags to look out for.

1. Sense of Urgency or Threatening Language

Phishers use emotionally manipulative tactics in order to persuade people to click. For example, a phisher might send a text message saying “This is a notice from law enforcement in [your city]. Your immediate response is necessary”. The enclosed link may deliver malware or direct individuals to a phishing site.

2. Unfamiliar Sender or Recipients

Experts generally advise people to avoid opening emails from unknown senders. These messages can contain executable code designed to launch immediately upon clicking on an embedded link or an attachment. After deleting emails from unknown senders, they no longer remain a threat.

3. Spelling and Grammatical Errors

Phishing messages used to commonly contain poor spelling and grammatical errors. Hackers are growing increasingly sophisticated, and are less prone to these types of slip ups than in years past, however, you might still be able to identify a phishing attempt based on clumsy language use.

4. Request for Payment or Personal Details

Any requests for money or personal details are phishing red flags. In many instances, the emails tell a compelling story – they include fake invoices, request a payment, say that you’re eligible for a government refund, ask people to verify information, tell people that a coupon for a big-ticket item is available…etc. They can even appear to come from well-known businesses that do indeed regularly request payment updates or that may occasionally experience issues processing your payment.

5. Compelling Subject Lines

The most-clicked phishing emails include seemingly generic, yet fear-inducing subject lines. Example: Official Data Breach Notification

6. Compelling Call To Action

The top five phishing scams use compelling language and include phrases like ‘expires in 4 hours,’ ‘click now’ and ‘Get information here’.

7. Too Good To Be True

Winning the lottery is an unlikely prospect. And winning a lottery that you didn’t enter is an impossible feat. Similarly, an email containing information about a prize or award notification may also be a phishing email. Avoid clicking on links in order to claim a prize. If you might have actually won a prize, contact the sender through a secondary channel to confirm.

8. Blurry or Clumsy Design Work

Some cyber criminals create clones of legitimate logos that appear exact. But others really need to hire a graphic designer. When trying to spot a phishing email, look out for weird logos, image-only emails, and poor design formatting. If unsure about the legitimacy of the sender, reach out to the group via a different channel.

9. Hi, It’s Alex in Sales

An email from someone who is purportedly new within the organization or that claims to be from “[common first name] in the sales division” might actually be from a cyber adversary using social engineering techniques. The age of remote work makes it particularly challenging to parse apart legitimate emails of these types from malicious doppelgangers. This is especially true in large organizations with thousands of employees.

10. Protective Shield

Humans recognize and relate to one another through consistent linguistic patterns. If you receive an email from a colleague that sounds nowhere-near their typical email tone, use a non-email channel to confirm the validity of the email with the sender. A few simple precautionary measures could prevent your organization from experiencing a major data breach.

Sources:

https://www.cybertalk.org/2022/02/28/14-phishing-red-flags-to-watch-for-in-2022

https://www.phishing.org

3 Ways To Protect Yourself Against Mobile Fraud

With the rise of technology, smart phones and tablets are part of almost everything we do. With all the sensitive information we keep digitally, it is important to be aware of mobile fraud and how to prevent hackers from accessing that data. Below are three ways to help protect yourself and your information.

1. Don’t use the same password for all accounts.

In 2019, Google identified that 65% of all people use the same password for multiple or all accounts. By having one password, it makes it easier for hackers to access more of your accounts.

TIP: create an acronym or a phrase and use numbers and special characters to complicate it. For example, instead of using “password” you could use “P@s$w0rD”.

2. Avoid autosaving personal information on mobile apps.

If a company data is leaked, your saved password could be part of that information. If an unauthorized user has access to your physical device, they can easily find all the saved passwords kept in the browser.

TIP: Keep passwords secure in a book or use a secure password manager.

3. Monitor activity regularly, like reviewing bank transactions.

By using online banking or the Moose Mobile app, you have access to real-time transactions. Check your account regularly to ensure you recognize all the transactions coming through.

At First National Bank of Moose Lake, we offer IDTheftSmart for our customers, which is a program that incorporates Credit Monitoring and Restoration of an Identity Theft situation. For more information, contact one of our Personal Bankers at 218-485-4441.

Source: The password reuse problem is a ticking time bomb – Help Net Security