What I really like about my dutch bank account is that there is no password. When you sign up for internet banking you get a a little device that reads your card's chip. To login you have to give your account and 4 digit card number on the webpage, then it gives you a code. Then type your pin number and the code into the device, and it spits out a unique login code. If you want to make a payment, there's an extra layer to go through. No way to get your account hacked without having the card,or a faked one :/

I'm really wary about phishing too, I've gotten fake emails from my french bank, skype, and paypal. Really have to watch out for those!

Some of the banks in the UK do that as well. My collegue has one. Mine doesn't :( but they are a better bank for me in other ways.

I get so many phishing emails. I get facebook ones on my work account (which is not linked to facebook) and for all sorts of banks I'm not a member of. :evil:

I'm a big fan of submitting phishing emails to phishtank and spam in general to spamcop.

Well, I think I found the culprit! Although the first time around with my virus and spy softwares found nothing (two different programs searching for pretty much the same thing - I always have at least two modes of protection on my computer), one of them picked up something yesterday as I was accessing the internet.

A trojan was attempting to connect to the internet with me. After doing some research, it's the type that monitors your online activity and then submits "reports" to hackers.

Having difficulties deleting it though. My computer crashed while the software was attempting to delete it. This may be a job for a computer geek - not an orchid geek, lol...

Glad you've found the culprit. Hope you can get rid of it, some of these things are really nasty and resist removal :evil:

I think it must be quite a new one if your virus checker didn't find it earlier.

I don't know how often you update the virus checker, but I know mine checks for updated signatures every 10min when I'm online. If you only update once a day even that is not enough protection :( I know some people who update once a week and I keep trying to persuade them that if they are online that just isn't enough :(

Of course it takes a while for the anti-virus company to identify and release new signatures, but my 10min check (which is the default for this software) at least gets them as soon as they are available.

It depends on your software too - not all of it updates all that regularly...

Yeah, it's one reason I would always go for a really big name virus checker... they are more likely to be hot on updating their databases.

I use Sophos because my company licences covers me at home as well and really like it, they are VERY hot on updates.