What is social engineering? 

CSO Magazine defines Social Engineering:

“Social engineering is essentially the art of gaining access to buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology, rather than by breaking in or using technical hacking techniques. For example, instead of trying to find a software vulnerability, a social engineer might call an employee and pose as an information technology (IT) support person, trying to trick the employee into divulging his password.”
– CSO November 2011

Social Engineering can take on many forms and fraudsters can be very successful using this method since it is very low tech and costs very little (if any) money to do. When it comes to banking online, it's even more important to understand the risks and how to keep your information safe and secure.

Here are some common methods of social engineering: 

• Posing as a bank employee and calling you to trick you into divulging your personal financial information.
• Posing as a relative calling you to say that your nephew, cousin, aunt, etc. has been stranded in Europe and needs money wired to them in order to get back home.
• Facebook or Twitter scams such as free gift cards, phony charities, “watch this amazing video” are all used to trick people into again divulging private information to steal identities.

Protect yourself from social engineering:

• MutualBank will not call or email you asking for personal, financial, or username and password information.
• If you are suspect of a call you’ve received, insist on calling back with the published phone number of MutualBank or in the case of a relative the number that is known to you.
• If it’s too good to be true…it probably is. Be very leery of extremely cheap or free products / services advertised on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites.

At MutualBank, we strive to keep you educated of new scams or frauds.  For more information about protecting yourself visit our Alerts and Security information.  
Visit our Alerts anytime at bankwithmutual.com and click on "Alerts and Security". 

MutualBank customers can always call 800-382-8031 to report any instances of fraud or suspicious calls. Together we're working with you to keep your information safe.