Glossary

401 (k)
A retirement plan that is sponsored by an employer and allows employees to contribute to a tax-deferred account; Some 401 (k) plans also receive funding from employers. 401 (k) funds can be withdrawn after the employee retires and or is 59 1/2 years old. Taxes are paid upon withdrawal.  

Adjustable Rate Mortgage
An adjustable rate mortgage is a loan, secured by real property where the interest rate varies (or may vary) over the term of the loan according to rules and terms agreed to in the mortgage contract.  

Annual Fee
The cost or charge for having credit (or a banking service) available to use for a year. Some credit cards (or services) charge an annual fee, others do not. The annual fee is in addition to the interest cost of using credit.  

Annual Percentage Rate (APR)
The cost of credit on a yearly basis expressed as a percentage of the outstanding/borrowed balance.

Asset
Something of value. Personal assets are divided into two main categories: liquid assets (such as cash-on-hand, savings); and capital assets (such as investments including 401 (k) retirement funds, a house, or other valuable property).  

Asset Allocation
A basic financial planning strategy to save or invest in several different types of assets including cash, stocks, bonds, and real estate. Asset allocation increases opportunities for growth and protects against potential losses.  

ATM (Automated Teller Machine)
A computer that allows consumers to learn balances, get cash, make deposits, and do other banking chores. ATM’s are located in banks, stores, malls, drive-in centers, colleges, hospitals, airports, service stations, and many other locations for 24-hour convenience. If you use an ATM that is not sponsored by your bank, there may be a fee for using it (called a surcharge).  

Fixed Rate Mortgage
A fixed rate mortgage is a loan, secured by real property where the interest rate is fixed over the term of the loan.  

GLBA
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley-Act (GLBA) is a Federal law applying to financial institutions that addresses (among other things) matters of privacy and protection of certain kinds of sensitive personal information. You receive privacy notices in the mail because of GLBA, and financial institutions are required to take many strong information protection steps to comply with this law.  

Keystroke Logger
The term “keystroke logger” refers to malicious software that can find its way onto a computer (infect a computer) by various means. Once installed (usually without the knowledge of the computer user) the keystroke logger captures and stores all keystrokes from the keyboard. This keystroke data is then harvested in various ways by an attacker. The keystrokes the attacker is usually most interested in are the ones that represent the user logging-in to important computers (servers) or financial applications.  

NPI
“Non-public personal information”. This is a term that came into wide use in the context of a Federal law called the Gramm-Leach-Bliley-Act (GLBA). This law focuses on, among other things, financial institution requirements to generally protect NPI of their customers. Examples of NPI include social security numbers (SSNs), credit card numbers, account numbers, log-in credentials and the like especially when they can be associated with a real person.  

Password
“Are you who you say you are?” A password can take many forms and is a string of characters associated with a user ID (user name, account ID or other identifier) whose purpose is to function as an authenticator. In order to function as an authenticator, the password must be known only to the user and to the provider of service. It must be a secret and is called a shared secret authenticator. All the annoyances you experience with using a password (strong construction, frequent changes, onerous reset procedures, etc.) are directed a trying to keep the password a secret.  

PIN
“Personal Identificatin Number”. A PIN is a form of password that is generally very short and only offers strong authentication when used in conjunction with a second form of authentication such as an ATM card. Together the PIN and the card form a 2-factor authentication system … something you know and something you have.  

Secure Email
Information sent via normal, unencrypted email is generally considered to be insecure and therefore unsuitable for sending sensitive personal information such as SSNs, account numbers or credit card numbers. Federal and some state regulations require all financial institutions to protect (using encryption) any emails sent that contain sensitive, non-public personal information (NPI).  

Trojan Horse (related to computers)
The term “Trojan Horse” in the context of computers refers to malicious software that can find its way onto a computer (infect a computer) by various means using the basic method of disguising itself as (or attaching itself to) some other software application that the computer user may see as useful or desirable. When the user downloads or installs the appealing application (often it is “free”), the malicious application is also installed. You may recall that this is how the Trojans got a vanguard of soldiers through the gates of Troy.  

User ID (or User Name)
“This is who I say I am.” A user ID or user name is an electronic alias or identifier that most often represents a real or “natural” person who accepts responsibility for the actions associated with a specific computer or application or network account. User IDs must be unique within some well-defined “domain” (such as all the online banking customers of NGB) … which is why a person’s social name can not usually be used. A person’s user ID is generally not intended to be a secret although it does not hurt to treat it as such. Today, email addresses are the most commonly used user ID because they have known uniqueness across a very large domain (in some cases, globally).  

Virus (Computer Virus)
A computer virus is a type of malicious software that can “infect” a computer from a variety of sources and that replicates itself to other vulnerable computers in a variety of ways. A computer virus may or may not try to cause harm to the computer that it infects.  

ZixMail or ZixCorp
NGB currently uses a vendor called ZixCorp to provide encrypted (secure) email services for both inbound and outbound email. One of ZixCorp’s products is called ZixMail.