Security
Cookies

Security

Security refers to preventing unauthorized access to a computer system or network. AXIS™ Internet Banking* uses several layers of technology to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to the internal network. Internet Banking's security professionals manage a sophisticated networking architecture that includes screening routers, filtering routers, and firewalls.

AXIS™ Internet Banking* or "Internet Banking" is our term for accessing your account information over the Internet. Your financial institution may refer to it as Internet Account Access or use a different name.

Internet Banking uses software from Netscape^® Communications that incorporate full data encryption to ensure the security and privacy of transactions. This encryption technology is so secure that it is classified by the U.S. Department of Defense. United States law forbids export of this technology to other countries. As a further security measure, Internet Banking utilizes its Internet server as a firewall, thereby preventing customer data from being directly accessed via the Internet.

The Internet Banking section is automatically secured/encrypted, but the rest of the Web site can be accessed as either secure or unsecure. To see at a glance if a session is secure:

• Check the key icon at the lower-left corner of Netscape's screen. If it is intact and a blue line appears at the top of the screen, all messages are secure.
   
• Check if there is an "s" after the "http" in the URL. The "s" after the "http" denotes that the page is secure.

If using Microsoft® Internet Explorer, and the image of a lock is displayed, the lock indicates the site is secure.

WARNING: If the icon appears as a picture of a broken key or a broken lock, encryption is not in use and the current session is not secure.

To ensure security, we recommend the following:

Never reveal your password**.

**Password refers to your telephone access (audio response system, not Bill Payment) password or the password that you selected when you signed up for Internet Banking. Your financial institution may use a different name. If you have questions about which number to use to access Internet Banking for the first time, contact your financial institution.

IMPORTANT: Some browsers allow you to enable a function to require passwords for specific sites or certifications. In that instance, you should enter the password for the browser.

Passwords are case sensitive. Mixing uppercase and lowercase letters is permitted.

You can change your Internet Banking password under User Options at any time. It is recommended that you change your password every six months.

WARNING: Financial institutions do not have access to your password. In the case of a forgotten password, contact your financial institution and ask them to reset your Internet Account Access for Internet Banking.

Use the Sign Off icon to end a Internet Banking session. This will expire all the cookies that were set in your session. Do not use the Back key.

IMPORTANT: If you do not exit the browser, the browser will allow you to use the Back key to get back into your Internet Banking session should you wish to explore another site.

The amount of time you can remain inactive before being automatically logged out of Internet Banking can be set under User Options.

WARNING: For your own security, keep this time setting as short as possible.

It is recommended that you balance your account at least once a month so that any discrepancies can be reported in a timely manner.

Cookies

A "cookie" is a small piece of information (a text file), which a web server can store temporarily with a web browser. Once the cookie is stored, the site's web server can later retrieve that information for that browser.

For example, when a person browses through an "online shopping mall" and adds items to a "shopping cart" while continuing to shop, your browser stores a list of the items that have been added to the cart so that the user can pay for all of the items at once when he is finished shopping. It's much more efficient for each browser to keep track of information like this than have web server remember who bought what, especially if there are thousands of people using the web server.

When browsing the web, any cookies that are sent to a browser are stored in the computer's memory. When the browser is closed, any cookies that haven't expired are written to a cookie file so they can be reloaded next time the browser is used.

Online banking uses a different kind of cookie known as a session cookie, a non-persistent cookie, or a pre-expired cookie. These cookies are placed temporarily and are never stored to the user's computer memory. Instead, these pre-expired cookies are used as part of the stringent security measures in the Internet Banking product. As the end user navigates through Internet Banking a pre-expired cookie is set each time a page is viewed. Because the HTML page they are viewing is not "cached", it must always be re-retrieved from the server.

The pre-expired cookies keep the session alive until the end user logs out properly or times out of Internet Banking. Once this occurs, the end user must login with their User ID and Password to gain access again. This ensures that another user using the same computer cannot access the previous session.