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Raccoon Valley Skills Academy: How Secure is your Password?

Password security is paramount to your financial security

“abc123” or “password” are not considered secure passwords, so it’s time to update!


As part of the Raccoon Valley Bank Skills Academy, we’re touching on keeping your accounts secure with a strong password. You can save and deposit as much money as you want, but without the proper protection, it could all be for nothing.
Technology has made banking services easier to access from your smart phone, home computer, laptop and tablet. With this ease of use, it’s important to remember that along with the convenience comes the need for additional security measures.
Raccoon Valley Bank offers a variety of online services: online banking, mobile banking, and business banking.  For all of these services, we stress the importance of password security and making your password different than other accounts, like Facebook. There are measures you can take to keep your banking secure through basic password best practices.
Ways to make passwords for your online banking secure:

  • Change your password often. Consider changing your password every month. Set a goal to change your password the same time each month. It will get you into a good habit of keeping your online banking information and sensitive information secure.
  • Make your password at least eight characters because shorter passwords are easier to crack. The longer, the better because long passwords are more complicated to crack. Always have at least one upper case letter, lower case, number and symbol to make it more secure.
  • Do not use the same password for various accounts. It may be easier to remember only one password for your Facebook, online banking, and email. However, you should never use the same password because if a hacker finds one, they have access to every other account you have.
  • Do not share your password. Sharing banking passwords can cause trouble if the other person forgets to log out and it is a hassle if they make transactions you did not approve. It is best that only you access your account information.
  • Avoid accessing accounts on unsecure networks. It is best practice to not use hotel or airport Wi-Fi or public computers to look at banking information. Hackers can access your information from these types of networks more easily because they are not secured.

Raccoon Valley Bank encourages you to use our online banking services, but we want you to do so in the most secure manner possible.  A few small steps can help prevent your sensitive account information from falling in the hands of a criminal.