Basic Safety Practices for Digital Wallets

If you want to keep your digital devices, and any digital wallets, safe from harm you first need to understand what’s actually at stake. Then you can formulate a plan, and a backup plan to deal with the rare scenarios that might not ever happen. Here are some of the basic principles people need to be aware of when they use digital wallets.

Encryption

Most people don’t understand that the device itself encrypts the data you’re sending. A few years ago, a new technology known as “Near Field Communication” was put into use that allowed phones to wirelessly communicate payment data from device-to-device. NFC is a protocol, or a method of communicating, that both encrypts and protects any data sent with it.

The device takes care of this on its own, without any required user input.

Account Security

There are two fundamental flaws in digital wallets. The first is a weak password used to protect your initial account. The best method to protect your account is fairly simple: use a stronger password. There are a variety of methodologies behind coming up with a good password, so you can pick and choose the one you like best. The key is to store those passwords securely. There are a variety of plugins for most browsers that do this for you, but you can use password protection apps to safeguard your information as well.

The second security flaw is device security. Most of us keep our phones fairly guarded, but we still lose them from time to time. There is also physical theft of a device to contend with. The best solutions to these challenges, again, come down to users utilizing stronger passwords and security measures to protect their devices.

Each wallet is persistent, meaning it follows the user from one device to another. If your device breaks, or it’s stolen, you can simply lock the account remotely and recover your credentials on a new device.

Article submitted by Charge.com. Charge.com is the #1 merchant processing company for on and offline retailers for 6 years in a row. With free software and card readers available, Charge.com offers an affordable and reliable solution for merchant processing.