Never reply to email or SMS asking for sensitive a/c information Many stock-trading websites provide their users small electronic tokens that generate onetime passwords

ONLINE financial transactions are becoming more popular than ever before; right from buying books and gadgets online, to buying tickets, paying utility bills and transferring funds to other accounts.

Online transactions are also becoming relatively safer, with instant updates on the mobile phone when withdrawing cash from an ATM or providing a second password when using debit cards to purchase online.

Many banks have been providing multiple layers of security and foolproof measures to ensure that your data and money are safe. But, on the other hand, credit card details are becoming one of the most commonly traded items in the black market and it important for bank accountholders to ensure the safety of their bank information. Here are a few ways to ensure that your identity is not stolen: Type the bank address directly: One of the easiest methods hackers follow is to send you a mail posing as your banker, asking you to click a link and provide a few account details.
Most of these mails are usually bogus, experts say.

Type the domain name of the website directly into your browser's address bar rather than following any link. Your bank will never email you asking for sensitive information such as account details. Such emails are phishing attempts. Phishing attempts also come in the form of alerts from either your social networking site or bank, asking for private information.

Ensure second authentication when paying online: Anyone who has hacked your account and knows your net banking ID and password can easily misuse it. To prevent that, many banks and payment service providers, such as Visa and MasterCard, have implemented a two-way authentication system to make transactions safer.

Many stock-trading websites provide their users small electronic tokens that generate onetime passwords. The user has to provide the user name, password and also the one-time password from the token to be able to start trading.

One-time passwords are a form of strong authentication, providing much better protection to corporate networks, online bank accounts and other systems containing sensitive data. Some of these devices are PIN-protected, offering an additional level of security.

How to ensure the website is safe? Any webpage would have an address starting with an http and for those pages that require you to enter your username and password, the webpage address would begin with `https', where `s' indicates safety of the details entered in the page.

Any page that asks for sensitive information should be a https page that ensures that the information sent from your computer to the bank server is in garbled form and will not be helpful for a hacker who manages to get in between. Do not enter your user name, password or account details on any website that does not have an address beginning with https.