Financial Wellness & Education

What it means for your Business AI is transforming the way businesses operate. From streamlining processes to predicting market trends, AI offers significant advantages. However, with these advancements come new risks, and one of the most pressing concerns for businesses today is the rise of AI-powered threats, such as deepfakes. Deepfakes are realistic but artificially manipulated audio, video, or image content created using AI. While this technology can have legitimate uses in...

The Billion-Dollar Cyber Threat Every Company Must Address Businesses worldwide are encountering a rapidly growing cybersecurity threat: Business Email Compromise (BEC). This sophisticated form of cyberattack has become one of the most financially damaging crimes, targeting companies of all sizes to steal sensitive information and funds. What is Business Email Compromise? Business Email Compromise is a type of cyberattack in which criminals use email fraud to manipulate employees,...

Between the recent Yahoo, Facebook, Neopets, and LinkedIn data breaches, close to four billion consumers have had their personal information stolen. While the size of these digital heists is unprecedented, they’re nothing new for modern consumers. Since the early 90s, criminals have been stealing online customer data, leveraging credit cards or social security info for billions in ill-gotten gain. And, of course, the banking industry is no stranger to these attacks. At Planters First...

A type of internet risk is Corporate Account Takeover Corporate Account Takeover is an ongoing electronic crime typically involving the exploitation of businesses. Businesses that are more at risk are those with limited to no computer safeguards and minimal or no disbursement controls for use with their bank's online business banking system. These businesses are vulnerable to theft when cyber thieves gain access to their computer system to take confidential banking information in order to...

Criminals don't like getting caught. So, when they want to send and receive stolen money, they get someone else to do the dirty work. Some scammers develop online relationships and ask their new sweetheart or friend to accept a deposit and transfer funds for them. Other cons recruit victims with job ads that seem like they're for legit jobs, but they're not. Law enforcement calls the victims 'money mules.' If you get involved with one of these schemes, you could lose money and personal...

Passwords Use strong passwords – Passwords should be complex, use long phrases and a mixture of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Keep passwords a secret and safe – Do not share passwords with anyone. Keep them in a secure place if written down. Change passwords frequently. Use different passwords for different accounts; never use the same password for business and personal accounts Electronic Devices and Software Keep software...

Planters First Bank has information for you during National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) — March 5 - 11, 2023 — and any time of the year. NCPW is a time when government agencies, consumer protection groups, and organizations like ours work together to share information about consumer rights and help people learn to spot, report, and avoid scams. Looking to protect yourself from fraud, identity theft, and scams? Wondering about the best way to improve your credit, shop for a used...

It can be a bit overwhelming to understand all of the terms you’ll hear tossed about regarding cybersecurity. Just a few include malware, ransomware, phishing, worm, and many more. So while we can’t explain all things cybersecurity in this article, our goal here is to give you an overview of many of the more common terms. Malware – This includes viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses. These are software programs that infect your machine and carry malicious codes to destroy the data on...