Protect Yourself Online


South Valley Bank & Trust will never ask for your personal information through e-mail. Below are some guidelines you may follow to help prevent online fraudulent activity.

  • Do not respond to un-solicited e-mails from companies with which you do business requesting that you re-validate personal information or that link to Web sites requesting that you re-validate personal information. Should you receive such e-mail, contact the company directly via phone or by typing in their home page URL directly to determine the validity of the e-mail.
  • If e-mails or Web sites contain typographical or grammatical errors, review them carefully as these are often signs of fraud attempts to compromise your information.
  • Do not click on "links" you receive in an e-mail message. Open your browser and enter the address directly by copying and pasting the link into the address bar.
  • Do not share your user ID or password with anyone.
  • Change your password on a regular basis.
  • Only provide your personal or account information online to sites you trust and where you initiated the contact.
  • Remember to sign off of a Web site once you have submitted an application or completed a secure online session where personal information was given.
  • When you are not using your computer remember to shut it down or disconnect it from an Internet connection.
  • Only provide your ID and password when your browser indicates an encrypted connection. An encrypted connection is normally indicated by an "https://" in your browser's address bar in front of the address of the page you are visiting.
  • If you think you may have provided information to a fraud perpetrator, change your password immediately and monitor your account activity frequently.

Computer Virus Protection

  • Anti-virus protection. If your computer becomes infected with a virus, you could possibly lose information and incur repair expense. Make sure your computer has an anti-virus protection program installed to reduce the risk of your computer becoming infected.
  • Automatic upgrades. If you currently do not have this automatic upgrade feature, make sure you update your virus detection program weekly and when you hear of a new virus.
  • Attachments. Learn how to manually screen diskettes and attachments if your anti-virus software does not automatically screen for viruses.

Internet Browser Updates

It is important to keep your Internet browser as up-to-date as possible. The links below will take you the location where you can get the most recent version of the recommended browsers:

Also keep in mind that in order to access our Online Banking site, you must have browser software capable of supporting 128-bit encryption. The above recommended browsers have that capability.