When Technology Bites Back
April 9, 2018
Logging into my bank account a couple weeks back, I saw an unfamiliar transaction. A substantial amount had been withdrawn the day before. The transaction was labeled Transfer To PayPal. I have had a PayPal account for many years, originally established in the early days of the commercial world wide web to enjoy more streamlined EBay transactions. Long before Amazon revolutionized online commerce, in 1995 EBay made it possible to shop with the click of a mouse! By processing electronic payments between a buyer and seller, PayPal made Ebay shopping even easier.
After a more suspenseful than usual round of username/password trial and error, I was able to log into my PayPal account. Happily, the missing cash was in my Paypal account balance! I contacted PayPal support, who were vague about whether there was a record of fraudulent access to my account. Clearly someone had been able to hack my PayPal account and silently pull funds from my bank account using a link I had already in place. I promptly transferred funds back to my bank, changed my PayPal password, and enabled multi-factor authentication so a code sent by text message is now required to login to PayPal.
Given the nature of the services our firm provides to client families, cybersecurity threats are all too familiar. This event however demonstrated the reality of the threat. Security experts tell us that enabling two-factor authentication wherever feasible provides some of the best available protection for transactional accounts. Some institutions go a step further. Schwab even provides a security guarantee against fraud covering 100% of losses from unauthorized activity.
Perhaps as disconcerting as an unauthorized withdrawals stemming from a near-forgotten account is confidential mail getting delivered to the wrong address. Wrong address deliveries have become increasingly frequent in my neighborhood as evidenced by dozens of accounts of mis-delivered mail on NextDoor, a neighborhood-based online network. Some, including our nation’s president, suspect that the US Postal Service is overwhelmed by Amazon and its reported 5 billion Prime deliveries in 2017. The Postal Service makes 180 billion deliveries a year (493 million a day), according to the USPS itself. Based on that volume it is not surprising that there are some mistakes.
I was interested to learn that the USPS now offers a service called Informed Delivery that can email images of mailpieces scheduled for delivery that day. Its daily previews could help a recipient recognize failed deliveries if scheduled mail never arrives. An even more practical approach is to adopt electronic delivery in place of physical mail to prevent sensitive material from landing in the wrong hands.
These experiences have revealed the irony of needing increased technology to combat the consequences of advancing technology in our lives. At least for now, enjoying the time savings and ease of access to information that technology affords may mean committing to increased vigilance and the minor inconvenience of additional security measures.
Cam Simonds
