Security Awareness

Customer Security Awareness Education For Both Retail and Business Customers

For most of us the Inter­net has become a basic part of dai­ly life. As the com­fort lev­el with the inter­net con­tin­ues to grow so does doing oth­er types of busi­ness online. Mil­lions of con­sumers today are doing some or all of their bank­ing online.

It’s con­ve­nient and effi­cient. You can access your account and make bank­ing trans­ac­tions at any­time from any­where you have an Inter­net con­nec­tion. Inves­tar Bank offers Online Bank­ing and Mobile Bank­ing as a free service.

Through our Online Bank­ing ser­vice, you can man­age eli­gi­ble accounts from your home or office com­put­er or inter­net enabled mobile device.

SERVICES AVAILABLE THROUGH ONLINE BANKING

  • Receive and down­load bal­ance and trans­ac­tion infor­ma­tion for INVES­TAR BANK accounts
  • Trans­fer funds between any autho­rized Accounts
  • Export account infor­ma­tion into a for­mat­ted file. This file will be down­loaded onto your com­put­er where it will be avail­able for import into a per­son­al finan­cial man­age­ment soft­ware program
  • Ini­ti­ate a stop pay­ment on a check
  • Receive your month­ly state­ments online
  • Apply for prod­ucts and services
  • Pay bills elec­tron­i­cal­ly from a Deposit Account
  • Receive e‑mail from and trans­mit e‑mail to the Bank

* Please review the full Online Bank­ing Dis­clo­sure for com­plete list of user guidelines.

With the use of the inter­net and Online Bank­ing increas­ing so does inter­net fraud. Inves­tar Bank has pre­ven­ta­tive con­trols in place to help deter Online Bank­ing fraud. Online Bank­ing users should review the below con­trols as well as the Basic Online Secu­ri­ty Prac­tices for Both Retail and Busi­ness Cus­tomers for more infor­ma­tion on fraud pre­ven­tion edu­ca­tion. Inves­tar Bank also encour­ages account hold­ers to review secu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion resources that help cus­tomers keep abreast of new and emerg­ing issues, such as online secu­ri­ty mag­a­zines and secu­ri­ty ven­dor websites.

EDUCATION

  • The FDIC does not direct­ly con­tact bank cus­tomers (espe­cial­ly relat­ed to ACH and Wire trans­ac­tions, account sus­pen­sion, or secu­ri­ty alerts), nor does the FDIC request bank cus­tomers to install soft­ware upgrades. Such mes­sages should be treat­ed as fraud­u­lent and the account hold­er should per­ma­nent­ly delete them and not click on any links. User should also keep in mind; Inves­tar Bank will not con­tact a cus­tomer on an unso­licit­ed basis and will nev­er ask you to pro­vide them with Online Bank­ing cre­den­tials such as the pass­word, secu­ri­ty answers and ques­tions or secure token information.
  • Mes­sages or inquiries from the Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice, Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau, NACHA, and almost any oth­er orga­ni­za­tion ask­ing the cus­tomer to install soft­ware, pro­vide account infor­ma­tion or access cre­den­tials is prob­a­bly fraud­u­lent and should be ver­i­fied before any files are opened, soft­ware is installed, or infor­ma­tion is provided.
  • Phone calls and text mes­sages request­ing sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion are like­ly fraud­u­lent. If in doubt, account hold­ers should con­tact the orga­ni­za­tion at the phone num­ber the cus­tomer obtained from a dif­fer­ent source (such as the num­ber they have on file, that is on their most recent state­ment, or that is from the organization’s web­site). Account hold­ers should not call phone num­bers (even with local pre­fix­es) that are list­ed in the sus­pi­cious email or text message.
  • Phish­ing
  • Spy­ware
  • Mal­ware

Please see Basic Online Secu­ri­ty Prac­tices for Both Retail and Busi­ness Cus­tomers for more tips on how online bank­ing users can safe guard their per­son­al bank­ing infor­ma­tion against these threats.

Consumer Protection Regulation E

  • Reg­u­la­tion E pro­vides rules for error res­o­lu­tion and unau­tho­rized trans­ac­tions for elec­tron­ic fund trans­fers, which includes most trans­ac­tions processed online. In addi­tion, it estab­lish­es lim­its to your finan­cial lia­bil­i­ty for unau­tho­rized elec­tron­ic fund trans­fers. These lim­its, how­ev­er, are direct­ly relat­ed to the time­li­ness of your detec­tion and report­ing of issues to Inves­tar Bank. It is for this rea­son that we encour­age you to imme­di­ate­ly review peri­od­ic account state­ments and to reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tor your account activ­i­ty online.
  • The ​“Elec­tron­ic Fund Trans­fers” dis­clo­sure pro­vid­ed to you at the time of account open­ing pro­vides detailed infor­ma­tion. We will pro­vide to you, upon request, a free print­ed copy of this disclosure.
  • In the event sus­pi­cious account activ­i­ty has occurred or infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty – relat­ed events have been expe­ri­enced please con­tact your local branch or con­tact Inves­tar Bank direct­ly at customerservice@​investarbank.​com or you can reach us at 1.866.604.2006.

SIGN ON & GENERAL CONTROLS Investar Online Banking Safety Features

Inves­tar Bank’s online bank­ing ser­vice is equipped with fea­tures that can help safe­guard your sen­si­tive per­son­al account information:

  • Sign on restric­tion - Pub­lic or unse­cured com­put­ers (for exam­ple, an Inter­net café or library) should not be used for access­ing Online Banking.
  • Ded­i­cat­ed com­put­er - An FBI rec­om­mend­ed best prac­tice is to sug­gest that com­pa­ny users ded­i­cate a com­put­er sole­ly for finan­cial trans­ac­tions (e.g., no web brows­ing, emails, or social media).
  • Secure sign on reg­is­tra­tion — Cus­tomers should reg­is­ter their com­put­ers so they will not be required to answer the chal­lenge ques­tions on every login.
  • Pass­word require­ments - Online Bank­ing uses strong pass­word con­trols that require cus­tomers to use a com­bi­na­tion of spe­cial char­ac­ters, let­ters, and/​or num­bers. Pass­words can­not be the same as the asso­ci­at­ed user ID or be one of X (con­fig­urable by your finan­cial orga­ni­za­tion) pre­vi­ous­ly used pass­words. Pass­words may be set to expire periodically.
  • Last sign on date and sign on attempts — The Online Bank­ing Wel­come page shows cus­tomers the last day and time (East­ern Time) they signed on. Cus­tomers should con­firm this each time they sign on. Cus­tomers are allowed three unsuc­cess­ful sign on attempts before their account is locked and access is prevented.
  • Inac­tiv­i­ty time­out — Online Bank­ing auto­mat­i­cal­ly signs cus­tomers off after 20 min­utes of inactivity.
  • Account nick­names — Account num­bers should not be used for account nicknames.
  • Secure tokens or one-time pass­codes - Use of secure tokens or one-time pass­codes are high­ly rec­om­mend­ed at sign on or at trans­ac­tion entry. These options pro­vide a sec­ondary lay­er of authen­ti­ca­tion and addi­tion­al security.
  • Antivirus soft­ware and oper­at­ing sys­tems - Cus­tomers should keep their antivirus soft­ware and oper­at­ing sys­tems up-to-date.

BUSINESS BANKING GENERAL CONTROLS

Inves­tar Bank encour­ages com­mer­cial users to eval­u­ate each user role, lim­its and acces­si­bil­i­ty assigned to users. We also encour­age com­mer­cial Online Bank­ing cus­tomers to per­form a risk assess­ment and eval­u­ate con­trols peri­od­i­cal­ly as it relates to their Online Bank­ing access. We also encour­age all busi­ness cus­tomers to devel­op an inci­dent response plan and applic­a­bil­i­ty of laws and reg­u­la­tions to busi­ness own­ers to safe­guard information.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Busi­ness account hold­ers should be aware of their expo­sure to elec­tron­ic theft. In par­tic­u­lar­ly, cor­po­rate account takeovers and cyber thieves, expo­sure risks, secu­ri­ty mea­sures, ben­e­fits of a risk assess­ment, insur­ance cov­er­age needs relat­ed to elec­tron­ic thefts.

  • Ser­vice enti­tle­ments - Online Bank­ing sup­ports cus­tomer lev­el enti­tle­ments for all ser­vices allow­ing Inves­tar Bank to estab­lish our own risk review process before allow­ing access to a feature.
  • Sep­a­ra­tion of duties - Cus­tomers should assign roles and use account enti­tle­ments to sep­a­rate duties in a com­pa­ny. For instance, one user can enter an ACH or Wire trans­ac­tion and anoth­er can trans­mit it.
  • Lim­it approvers - Role-based access can be used to lim­it the num­ber of users with approval authority.
  • Manda­to­ry alerts - Online Bank­ing sup­ports the fol­low­ing manda­to­ry alerts for all Online Bank­ing users. An alert is auto­mat­i­cal­ly sent to cus­tomers in particular:
    • A pass­word is changed.
    • An e‑mail address is changed.
    • Failed Trans­fers (Inter­nal and external).
    • Trans­fer Com­plet­ed (Inter­nal and external).
    • ACH (option­al) — An alert can be sent to cus­tomers when:
      • An ACH tem­plate has been added, edit­ed, or deleted.
      • An ACH trans­fer is pend­ing approval.
    • Wire (option­al) — An alert can be sent to cus­tomers when:
      • A wire trans­fer tem­plate has been added, edit­ed, or deleted.
      • A wire trans­fer is pend­ing approval.
  • ACH - Mul­ti­ple approvals can be required to send an ACH trans­ac­tion. These can be set by Inves­tar Bank or by a user at the com­pa­ny who has the Admin­is­tra­tion role.
  • Wire - Mul­ti­ple approvals can be required to send a wire. These can be set by Inves­tar Bank or by a user at the com­pa­ny who has the Admin­is­tra­tion role.
  • Funds Trans­fer — Mul­ti­ple approvals can be required to enter a funds trans­fer includ­ing exter­nal trans­fers. These can be set by Inves­tar Bank or by a user at the com­pa­ny who has the Admin­is­tra­tion role.
  • File Trans­fer - Mul­ti­ple approvals can be required for cus­tomers to send Files to Inves­tar Bank includ­ing NACHA files. These can be set by Inves­tar Bank or by a user at the com­pa­ny who has the Admin­is­tra­tion role.
  • Trans­fer his­to­ry - His­to­ry reports are avail­able for ACH, Wire and Funds Trans­fer. Cus­tomers should review this infor­ma­tion regularly.

PAYMENT AND TRANSFER BEST PRACTICES

  • Prenotes - Finan­cial orga­ni­za­tions should rec­om­mend using prenote for new transactions.
  • NACHA guide­lines — Inves­tar Bank reviews their stan­dard risk approval process for ACH activ­i­ty per NACHA guidelines.
  • Secu­ri­ty PIN — Inves­tar Bank uses the free form wire secu­ri­ty PIN feature.
  • Wire review - Inves­tar Bank reviews Wires in Online Bank­ing before upload­ing wire files into our wire system.
  • Bal­ance check — Online Bank­ing sup­ports Funds Ver­i­fi­ca­tion for out-going funds.

RESOURCES FOR BUSINESS ACCOUNT HOLDERS

Addi­tion­al­ly, busi­ness account hold­ers should be aware of their expo­sure to elec­tron­ic theft. In par­tic­u­lar­ly, cor­po­rate account takeovers and cyber thieves, expo­sure risks, secu­ri­ty mea­sures, ben­e­fits of a risk assess­ment and insur­ance cov­er­age needs relat­ed to elec­tron­ic thefts. Below are resources avail­able on these topics: