Firewall Bank Account

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What Does Firewall Bank Account Mean?

A firewall bank account is an intermediary account between an individual’s main checking account and accounts used for online transactions. By using a firewall account, a person can lower the risk that a transaction through an online store will result in the main account being exposed or hacked.

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A firewall account is also referred to as a buffer account.

Techopedia Explains Firewall Bank Account

The main purpose of a firewall account is to add another level of security to online transactions, whether through PayPal, eBay, Amazon or some other site where account details could potentially be exposed. To set up a firewall account, an individual opens a new account – often with an online bank – and only places money in it when he or she wishes to make an online purchase. The firewall account is purposely kept at a low or zero balance so that if the account is compromised, little or no money is lost.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.