October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and NIPSCO is encouraging customers to take steps to keep personal information safe from cyber criminals. The Merrillville-based utility company says potential dangers can present themselves in many forms, including phony calls, emails and text messages. “Maintaining the confidentiality of customer information is critically important to all of us at NIPSCO,” said NIPSCO President Mike Hooper. “Some of the measures we have implemented include extensive and continuous training of our employees on how to safeguard customer data, amplifying our data encryption and bolstering our incident response capabilities.” Hooper said the company also wants to “empower customers with ways to protect themselves as they utilize NIPSCO’s digital channels – our mobile app, website, live chat feature – as well as calls to our Customer Care Center.”
The company provided these tips to help customers build their cyber defenses as they access their accounts and communicate with NIPSCO:
• Password security (for website and mobile app): Change passwords often and don’t re-use old ones. Consider using a password manager instead of re-using passwords on
multiple sites.
• Check the lock (for NIPSCO’s website): Make sure you’re logging into the correct website and look for a lock icon in the URL in the address bar – it should appear to the left of the
URL. This indicates that data exchanged between your computer and NIPSCO’s server is encrypted.
• Don’t be fooled (when calling NIPSCO’s Customer Care phone line and using the chat feature):
NIPSCO says its customer representatives will not:
▪ Ask for your password over the phone or through live chat; or
▪ Ask for your credit card number through live chat.
o If being asked questions that seem suspicious, NIPSCO encourages customers to disconnect the call completely and call NIPSCO’s number as it appears on the website
or bill to ensure they are speaking to an authorized representative.
▪ NIPSCO’s Customer Care Center phone number is 1-800-4-NIPSCO, which operates Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT.
• Think before clicking (for website and alert emails/texts): Don’t click on links from unsolicited emails. If able to see where a link is directing to before clicking on it, do so. If
suspicious of a link, don’t click on it.
• Keep software updated (for mobile app and website): Ensure browser and operating systems are updated with the most recent software versions.
Additional tips from NIPSCO:
• Never share private, sensitive data: Don’t provide a NIPSCO account number, social security number and/or banking information to unconfirmed sources.
• Verify account status: Cyber criminals may insist that an account is past due, even when payments are up to date. Customers can verify the account status by logging into
their NIPSCO account online.
• Know the payment options: To more easily spot a potential scam, learn more about our NIPSCO payment options.
To view account details, learn about payment options and more, visit NIPSCO.com .