Why GTbank *737# service Menu is not Secured. A MUST READ

You may be amazed why a mere Blogger will be complaining about the banking security system of one of the best nigerian Banks. Well everybody has a different preconceived notion regarding different point of view as how someone view a situation. GTbank is one of the best nigerian bank in providing quality and efficient service to its customers more especially by introducing the *737# menu to allow its customers perform different kind of transaction like recharging your phone, paying your bills and opening an account with them and many more (check HERE).

Nowadays online transaction are much as everybody engage himself one way or the other to buy something online or perform a certain transaction with his bank account and with *737# Menu you can easily transfer money from someone bank account to your bank account directly by just using the last four (4) digits of his ATM card.

Disclaimer

This post was not associated with GTbank or its associates and its not written to detriment the image of GTbank but to make you aware of some security flaw and a solution to make your banking transaction simple and safer.

You might Also want to Read:
How to chat with Gtbank Customer Care Online
How to buy Airtime, pay your bills with GTbank offline

How *737# Code works with GTbank

This is a service menu that is used by any Gtbank customer to buy airtime, pay your nepa or DSTv bill, send airtime to friends, transfer money from your account directly to any other Gtbank customer or to other banks respectively. When you just dial *737# with the phone number you used in opening the account it will show up a menu of different transactions, assuming you want to transfer money to a friend, then what you need to do is just to select 4 and fill the requisite field available, after completing everything you need to use your last four (4) digits of your ATM card to authenticate the transaction. Basically you can notice that the last four (4) digits of your ATM card is the backbone of this transaction and without it *737# Menu is useless.

Unfortunate Situation

You have a GTbank account with huge amount of money inside and unfortunately for you someone inside your Office, family or a workaround friend is pretending to be a good Samaritan to you thereby given him access to your phone or your ATM card thinking that all is well. That mole within you can be able to memorize the last four (4) digits of your ATM card at a glance and whenever he is opportune to have access to your phone, he can easily transfer money to his bank account within couple of minutes and even thereby deleting the alert messages available on your phone, you can not be able to notice the transaction at the spot unless you are like me in collecting bank statement every month, which unfortunately for you and fortunately for him you are being frauded easily.

How to Protect Yourself from being Scam

Well haven't notice of the loophole is for you to know and be aware the kind of security counter measure you should check and implement to make sure that the unfortunate circumstance in the above paragraph never occurs. For those using Android phone i can recommend you to use Applock (download HERE)  in securing most of your Application especially the "phone" where someone dials a number or if you using another device that cannot support Applock you can always lock the phone using the security feature provided by the manufacturer of the device and still in some cases someone will remove your sim and put it on other device, in this case you are also mandated to enable sim card lock on your SIM as its best way for this.

Not only that, your ATM card is a great asset to you and you need to make it confidential by not disclosing it to anybody especially if you suspecting someone of a similar behaviour. Dont allow many people to get a hold of you ATM card even for a glance.

My Recommendation to GTbank

Gtbank engineers might not be aware of this certain security flaw but am using this platform as means of recommending a new secret password/PIN to be introduced for proper execution of the *737# service Menu i.e. one has to cram his password/PIN thereby not telling anybody as in similar to ATM card PIN which i believe will be difficult for anyone to guess and to discontinue the use of ATM last four (4) digits PIN.

Conclusion

Security is an illusion, weather you are using any other commercial bank in nigeria or abroad you have to be always vigilant and take counter measures in securing your banking details because anything that has advantage also have its disadvantage.

 

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