The rise of digital or e-wallets has brought us closer to the dream of a cashless society. More than half of Americans already use them to make hassle-free payments from anywhere. While they’re certainly convenient, are e-wallets as safe as their physical counterparts?
Here’s what you should know about e-wallet safety and the steps you can take to enhance it.
A Secure Digital Alternative
E-wallets are safer to use than traditional payment methods on multiple levels. They consolidate all your credit and debit card information, providing easy access to multiple payment options without the need to keep track of physical credit/debit/gift cards, coupons, etc.
They also use encryption and tokenization to keep all your transactions private and your information harder to access. On the one hand, encryption ensures that any intercepted transaction data is useless to attackers. On the other hand, the e-wallet stores numerical representations of your actual account numbers, known as tokens. Even if the wallet’s provider were to suffer a data breach, your card information wouldn’t become exposed.
How Can You Protect Your E-Wallet?
E-wallets and the payment methods they support are already quite secure. However, there’s always a chance someone will steal your device or trick you into giving up the information needed to access the wallet. Here are the steps you should take to prevent this.
Secure your phone
Most people use e-wallets on smartphones since their NFC capabilities make contactless payments convenient. Phones aren’t hard to steal, so making yours as hard to break into as possible is a must. Lock the screen by default and set up the most complex supported PIN or use biometrics to get access.
You’ll want to write down your phone’s identifying features, like its model, make, and unique serial number. Immediately report a stolen phone to the authorities and contact card issuers to freeze your accounts.
Use a passkey
There are ways to bypass a lock screen, so safeguarding the wallet itself with the most advanced measures is the next logical step. Rather than depending on a password you might have used elsewhere or have trouble remembering, you should use a passkey instead.
Passkeys are a more advanced yet straightforward measure. It works by pairing a public and a private key. The latter is stored exclusively on your device, meaning a data breach affecting the passkey provider wouldn’t endanger your wallet. Moreover, there are no credentials to remember since authentication is automatic. The wallet also becomes resistant to phishing and other social engineering attacks since there’s no traditional password to compromise.
Reduce your digital footprint
Using social media to gush about your latest purchases or share sensitive information about yourself is a proven way of getting unwanted attention from online scammers and hackers. We mentioned phishing, which you might not fall for if the attempt is poor. However, someone with access to detailed information about you can write a message convincing enough to get you to reveal your banking information or click a link to malware that will infect your device.
Take stock of what information you share publicly and keep identifying details to a minimum. Even that might not be enough since data brokers and other aggregators collect publicly available information on individuals, which may be enough for criminals to commit identity theft. Consider using only the best data removal services to get such information disposed of safely and permanently on your behalf. This will also ensure your identity remains uncompromised if such databases ever suffer a data breach.
Monitor account activity
Someone might have hacked your accounts before or despite implementing other security measures, so it’s always a good idea to monitor them closely. Even seemingly insignificant yet irregular activities may be the first signs of a takeover since crooks like to test the waters before making larger transfers. Set up activity notifications with your e-wallet provider and bank to nip such attempts in the bud.
