I know I talk a lot about online banking security, but it really is a growing issue for many Australians; especially those still using username and password only security.
Internet security firm F-Secure has warned of an upsurge in attacks against banking sites, targeting personal user data. Reported in Computer World this week, these attacks use a new generation of malicious codes in a technique called “Man in the Browser (MITB).”
“Man in the Browser” attacks are activated when a user visits his bank site and a malicious code is triggered. But alarmingly, this Malware is capable of retrieving information such as login and password and then resold by the cyber-criminals to others or used.
Interestingly, Phishing is the spray-gun approach hoping to catch a few customers in the scam, but “Man in the Browser” attacks are very targeted and therefore much harder to defend with basic security systems.
A few online commentators that have useful content on this issue are Sue Walsh’s blog, http://www.igotspam.com/ which is a good resource to keep up to date on online security issues, updates, etc, wider than just banking.
Philipp Gühring is quite an authority on this matter and has been writing about these type of attacks since 2006, for the more technical among you, this paper by Philiipp in January this year goes into more detail.
The Australian online banking industry is very mature with more of us conducting our banking online than many of our international neighbours. As a result, the banking industry is working hard to keep up with all the scams online to protect customers, as are the software giants, such as Microsoft with their developer forums alive with debate and solutions.
RaboPlus is doing everything to protect its customers by giving every customer a Digipass, one of the safest methods of online banking. However we won’t rest on our laurels, the fight with hackers is becoming a serious and International issue not just in the banking sector.
It is also an issue for government and the law, as well as the banking industry on how collectively we are going to seek out and deal with these highly sophisticated criminals.
This YouTube video shows you how easy it is for hackers to steal from an everyday ATM let alone when they get inside your computer.
