1) Pay online with virtual cards
Avoid using your physical card number to pay for internet services. Unfortunately, even large online platforms experience data leaks. If your virtual card number was disclosed, blocking and reissuing it will be much easier than a physical one. The same applies if you accidentally enter your card number on a fraudulent site.
2) Set limits on each card issued
We recommend using different virtual cards for each group of transactions and setting monthly limits on the expected amount.
For example, you use a virtual card to pay for monthly soft subscriptions that, in total, require about $70 per month. Therefore, setting a monthly limit of $70 on this virtual card would be reasonable.
Why? Even if you enter your card number on a phishing website and approve the transaction by entering a second factor, your losses will be limited.
3) Slow down and pay attention
Our gadgets and websites work so quickly and smoothly that sometimes, we press buttons faster than we understand the meaning of the action. Remember simple rules:
don’t confirm the payment if you didn’t initiate it (for example, through mobile push);
check that the payment notification displays the same data as on the page where you make the payment;
if the payment is made by an employee of your company and not by you, pay attention to the time of payment, amount, and purpose (whether everything is as always or the payment was suddenly created at night from an unusual location).
4) Use Apple Pay/Google Pay instead of a physical card
The less often you use your physical card for payments, the less likely it is that:
the card is cloned;
you expose the card number and code to the cashier in the store, waiter, etc.;
you will lose the physical card.
However, we are sure you already use payments by phone because it’s convenient, and you don’t need to take out your wallet every time.
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Test your security level using this checklist:
I use ApplePay/GooglePay;
I issued virtual cards, each for a particular expense item;
Each card has its own limit;
I check transaction notifications.