What You Should Know About Security
This Website provides a combination of industry-approved security technologies to protect you and the bank. It features password-controlled system entry, a VeriSign-issued Digital ID for the bank's server, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol for data encryption, a router and firewall to regulate the inflow and outflow of server traffic.

Secure Access and Verifying User Authenticity
To begin a session with the First Federal Online Banking, the user must key in a Log-in ID and a password. Online Banking applies a lock-out mechanism to deter users from repeated log-in attempts. After three unsuccessful log-in attempts, the system locks the user out, requiring either a designated wait period or a phone call to the bank to verify the password before re-entry into the system. Upon successful log-in, the Digital ID from VeriSign, the experts in digital identification certificates, authenticates the user's identity and establishes a secure session with that visitor.

Secure Data Transfer
Once the server session is established, the user and the server are in a secured environment. Because the server has been certified as a 128-bit secure server by VeriSign, data traveling between the user and the server is encrypted with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. With SSL, data that travels between the bank and customer is encrypted and can only be decrypted with the public and private key pair. In short, the bank's server issues a public key to the end user's browser and creates a temporary private key. These two keys are the only combination possible for that session. When the session is complete, the keys expire and the whole process starts over when a new end user makes a server session.

Router and Firewall
Requests must filter through a router and firewall before they are permitted to reach the server. A router, a piece of hardware, works in conjunction with the firewall, a piece of software, to block and direct traffic coming to the server. The configuration begins by disallowing ALL traffic and then opens holes only when necessary to process acceptable data requests, such as retrieving web pages or sending customer requests to the bank.