How to Protect Your Financial Data Online
Today, you can perform virtually any monetary transaction through an app: transfers, payments, cash withdrawals, and much more. This is undoubtedly more convenient, but with increased accessibility come heightened security risks. Banks do a good job of securing their apps and banking portals. It is much more likely to fall victim to a phishing attack or a malicious link than to have your bank account hacked (assuming you use a strong password and two-factor authentication). Nevertheless, a reliable VPN can add an extra layer of security to your online banking and even simplify access to the app itself.
How secure is online banking?
The majority of websites use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). It uses TLS encryption to prevent your internet provider and any third party from interfering with your connection or viewing what you type or click on a website (although they can still see which site you visit). You can ensure that your connection is protected by HTTPS if there is a padlock icon in the URL bar of your browser. This means that when you connect to your bank's website or app, you can be relatively certain that you can go about your banking business securely.
How can a VPN help secure your transactions?
It can provide additional protection to your online banking that HTTPS cannot offer. It can also help you access your banking app under certain conditions.
Blocks DNS poisoning on public Wi-Fi
When you connect to a website, you enter the URL of that site, for example, https://shivavpn.io. But computers actually use IP addresses, not URLs. For instance, 185.159.159.140. The internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to link a URL to the correct IP address. Special DNS servers, operated by your internet provider or network administrator, handle these DNS requests. DNS poisoning or DNS spoofing is when an attacker intercepts your browser's DNS requests and sends back their own spoofed response. Typically, the attacker sends you to a site that looks exactly like the real one. But since it's under their control, they can see any information you enter, including your username and password. DNS poisoning is possible because DNS requests are not encrypted by TLS by default. Public Wi-Fi hotspots typically do not have the same safeguards as larger ISPs and thus are easier targets for DNS poisoning. However, if you use Shiva VPN, we encrypt all of your internet traffic, including your DNS requests. We also process your encrypted DNS requests on DNS servers that we operate ourselves. This prevents DNS spoofing.
Obscures which bank you use on public Wi-Fi
f you connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot in an airport, restaurant, or stadium, HTTPS will prevent attacks on your connection or viewing your activity on a website, but it won’t stop them from seeing which website you visit. They could see the bank you use and use this information to craft more believable phishing attacks. However, if you use Shiva VPN, your connection will be encrypted and routed through one of our VPN servers before you connect to your bank's website. Anyone else on the public hotspot will see the IP address of the VPN server but not which website or app you are using.
Provides access to the app from any location
If you try to access your banking app while traveling, your attempt might be marked as suspicious or even denied. Most banking sites are wary of logins to the app from foreign IP addresses. Shiva VPN can help you bypass this geoblocking. When using Shiva VPN, the websites you connect to cannot see the real IP address of your device. They only see the IP address of the VPN server you are connected to. If you connect to a VPN server in your country, your banking app will think you are there. But we recommend first trying to access the app on a secure Wi-Fi network without a VPN. Then, if you are blocked due to geographic reasons, connect to a VPN server in your country and try again.
Use only a trustworthy VPN
When you connect to a VPN, it essentially replaces your internet provider. It handles your internet connection, which means it can see which websites you visit. Given its ability to monitor your connection, using an untrustworthy VPN can be worse than not using a VPN at all.
