Telephone calls to/from banks
If you call your bank they will ask you a variety of questions
to enable them to confirm who you are. Ensure that none of this
information is published on a social networking site (see Social
Networking security).
If your bank calls you - how do you know they are who they say
they are? What questions can you ask them to prove who they are?
The answer is that you don't know who they are if they call out
of the blue and there aren't any questions set up to prove their
identity. They will also ask you the usual security questions so
that you can prove your identity to them. DO NOT ANSWER such
questions when they have called you unless you are certain who
the caller is. So DON'T
ACCEPT CALLS FROM BANKS.
The only exception to this is that you might accept a call when
you have already been talking to them and are expecting them to
call again. At least verify the name of the individual caller.
My experience of this situation has been with Tesco Bank who expose
their telephone number enabling early identification of the call
and the same help centre person tends to make every call so their
voice becomes recognisable.
When you get an unsolicited call from a bank or finance house I suggest you ask them who they are and what department they are calling from and tell them you will call them back. DO NOT call the number displayed on your phone or provided by 1471. Instead look up the appropriate number from your records or from written communications that you have had with them. If it was a phishing call this will become apparent when the bank knows nothing about needing to call you.
Call filtering
First off you need to be registered to the free Telephone
Preference Service
.
This will drastically reduce sales and marketing calls originating
from the UK. Please note that there is another
body, Telephone Preference Register, that charges a fee for a
similar service. It is, of course, up to you to decide whether
their service is worth paying for. I use the free service which
has proven very effective. Also note that a Google search for
'Telephone Preference Service' returns the 'Telephone Preference
Register' at the top of the list! I recommend you use the link
above!
As a further protection, particularly for international calls,
I use a method of call filtering that enables me to ignore or double
check the risky calls. I have a BT fixed line which offers an optional
facility described as Caller Display, which is an additional cost
feature from BT. I don't know whether this can be done on Virgin
but I would expect so. An equivalent facility exists on all mobile
lines by default.
Caller Display requires the use of a phone hand set with a display
screen. When a call is received the caller's telephone number is
displayed on this screen. If you have entered the particular caller's
details into the phone contacts list, for quick dialling, then
their name will be displayed instead of the number. The advantage
of this feature is that you can most often see who is calling you
before you answer the call. If you don't wish to speak to them
just ignore the call and it will go onto the answering machine.
If the caller leaves a message you can hear this being recorded.
If you decide you want to speak to the caller just pick up the
handset and do so.
If the call comes from abroad, as scam calls so often do, the
caller's number will not be displayed, but it will say 'International'.
My policy is to never answer International calls. I hope that
a genuine caller will leave a message and then I can call them
back. The vast majority of International calls that I get, as many
as six to ten a week, are either fax marketing calls (a hang over
from my business days), marketing calls, some automated calls often
telling me that I have won a lottery that I never entered, or those
who won't leave a message - scammers don't leave messages. Hence
I don't always know if I am being called by scammers, but as I
have very few friends abroad who would call rather than send an
email, it is a fair bet that most of these calls are undesirable.
While the BT service costs a quarterly fee (£8.10 +VAT at
12/2011) I consider it money well spent. I very rarely answer a
sales call and probably never answer a scam call.
... is a retired Information
Security Manager. I give no warranty that the advice given will prevent
your system from suffering from viruses, worms, spam, spyware, usage
trackers, keyloggers, abuse or any unauthorised programs, functionality
or macros of any kind introduced by any means. It must be accepted that
the subject is not fully explored in this document and descriptions of
problems and solutions are necessarily brief and incomplete. New security
problems are regularly being discovered in PC operating systems, mobile
'apps' and other software for all kinds of computer based consumer equipment
and users need to be constantly alert to the latest threats. Nor do I
give any warranty regarding personal identification protection, use of
social networking web sites, or calls to or from banks and finance houses.
Neither do I take any responsibility for any third party web site or
its contents nor for any products offered or supplied by those sites
or any retail outlet or the companies promoting them. If in doubt ask
for advice for your specific system or problem from a company offering
such advice or service. Always follow the specific advice of hardware
and software suppliers, banks and finance houses as appropriate.
© Copyright 2011 Tim
Boddington
