Robert F. Verdonck is president and CEO of East Boston Savings Bank.
Taking a phrase from Andy Rooney of the “60 Minutes” television show, “Did you ever wonder Â…” where all the need for personal security is coming from and where and when it will finally end?
In banking, it started with a simple personal identification number, or PIN, to gain access to automated teller machines, back in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Today we seemingly need a PIN and/or password for everything we do. And if you operate a computer in a system, your password has to be changed regularly and must be eight digits with numbers and letters that cannot be consecutive or sequential. So if you forget your password or PIN, you are in deep trouble.
I was driving the Massachusetts Turnpike recently when my cell phone rang. I am near-sighted, so I had my glasses on to see the road. Taking the call (without a hands-free apparatus) wasn’t bad until I had to return a call. That involved pressing the buttons (no voice activation), with my glasses on, then off. It got worse when I had to check my voicemail messages, which required me to put in my PIN. I know – I should stop the car while doing all this, but how many of us actually do that?
I now have a PIN for my:
• ATM card;
• Debit card;
• Phone voicemail;
• Building access;
• Cell phone;
• Internet security;
• Voicemail recall;
• E-mail access.
All of these PINs could conceivably be the same – unless, of course, I lose one or update equipment and have to change the PIN.
How many times have you logged onto a Web site that you haven’t visited in a while and been asked for your username and password, and you have to try to guess what combination you registered with that particular site? If you’re like me, you are constantly clicking on a “Forgot Password?” icon, which directs you to a link that requires you to enter your e-mail address (hopefully, you’ve remembered that) and your password will be e-mailed to you. That solves the immediate problem – until the next time you visit the site and probably have to repeat the process.
We have an online Internet training system at East Boston Savings Bank, so when I needed to update my security training, I went looking for my bank code and password. I finally found it in a pile with my Blue Cross/Blue Shield password, college alumni password, username codes for accessing my secretary’s voicemail when she is out, automatic re-balancing of my 401(k) contributions (Hold it! We have a new provider – discard memo), access code conference number to the Massachusetts Bankers Association Web site, username and code to the American Bankers Association Web site, password for access to classmates.com (I just had a reunion), and access to the board Web site for the Federal Home Loan Bank.
They also tell me that I should change these PINs periodically for security, and also change my credit card accounts yearly to provide the best security deterrent to identify theft. But how many cards do we carry? How often do we change them, transfer balances, etc?
I was away on vacation and forgot the last four-digit sequence I used and entered three wrong numbers into my Fidelity online account. So I was rewarded for my lapse of memory; now I have a six-digit number. Being locked out for security reasons is a real pain.
Maybe in the future we will put our right index fingerprint on the monitor and we will gain access to the Internet and other programs that way. Of course, in the movies, at least, even this is not foolproof security and may be bypassed by lifting a fingerprint off a drinking glass and using it for access. The iris scan may be out, also, since James Bond has already duplicated the iris scan technology. With contact lenses and the like, we may never be safe with this security system either.
So did you, too, ever wonder – where will the security stop and when will we be safe?
