There are two ways you can lose money as a trader: on one hand by unsuccessful trades and on the other hand through theft.
Most traders lose money in the long term. It is therefore extremely important to comply with the rules of Forex money management in order to preserve the capital as long as possible.
In this article we will elaborate on the topic of protection against unauthorized access to your online funds at your Forex broker. We do not talk about fraud and scam from FX brokers, we talk about how you can protect your Forex trading account.
How can money be stolen from my Forex trading account?
First of all we would like to state that usually your money is safe at a Forex broker. If you already have made payouts of your winnings, then you will have seen that, depending on the provider, it will take some time and effort to withdraw funds. One security feature that most Forex brokers use is that you can withdraw money only through that payment method with which you made the deposit. So if you deposited money via bank transfer, then a hacker with access to your Forex trading account can only request to withdraw your funds to your own bank account.
Even though the probability is low, you should still protect your data against unauthorized access. Therefore respect the following safety tips, which apply not only for Forex traders, but also for online banking and other online transactions.
Security and Safety Tips
Passwords: A weak points are the passwords. For sure you have the same problem: you have five, ten or more accounts with email providers, auction houses, forums, comparison sites etc and you are unable to remember all those passwords. So, you have used the same password everywhere. Although this makes it easier for you, it also makes it easier for hackers. And it is also risky to use easy to use-to-remember passwords with words that can be found in dictionaries. This makes it possible for hackers using the “brute force” to hack your password.
So you should use different passwords for your various accounts, and use passwords consisting of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. One way to use a different password for each site is, for example, by using the first three letters of the website (in our case, “Bro” from Broker Reviews), then to add 1-2 special characters of your choice (for example: *$) and to use your “normal” password at the end. If this is for example “Mustang”, then your new password for BrokerReviews.org would read as follows: “Bro*$Mustang,” while the password for eToro would be “Eto*$Mustang”.
And of course, you should never write down your passwords.
Protection from phishing: Do not open attachments from e-mails you receive from unknown or suspicious senders. A security risk is also when you visit questionable websites. Make sure that websites use the https encryption and that it is working (in modern browsers this is shown with an icon in the address bar). The perfect solution would be to have two different computers. One that you can use for surfing the web and the other one that you can use for Forex trading and other financial transactions.
Updated virus scanners: Keep your virus scanner updated. If you are connected to the Internet, then good virus scanners usually update themselves automatically. You do not necessarily have to buy an expensive product; there are many good free virus scanners available.
Firewall: Do not forget to activate your firewall. Modern operating systems and / or anti-virus products have such a protective mechanism.
Protection of PC / Notebook: Another security risk if someone steals your PC or notebook. A thief might search your PC and then perhaps find some secret data. There are several ways to protect your computer. On one hand by an increased protection against burglary in your home, and on the other hand by protecting the computer, for example by setting up a password which must be entered when booting the computer.
Avoid trading on public computer: You do not know what software was installed on a public computer in an Internet cafe. Avoid Forex trading on such public computers. If you really want to trade from outside of your home, then take your laptop with you or use a Forex broker that allows trading with mobile phones – see our broker comparison for some examples.
