Challenge

A challenge for online banking

Online banking is a modern bank’s biggest branch and is typically protected by measures such as firewalls, encryption and SSL, fortified data centers with armored doors and guards. Because access is over the Internet, all this protection can be rendered useless by simply stealing a customer’s user ID and password and impersonating the unsuspecting victim from any connected computer, anywhere in the world.

Online login theft

Today the most common method used by computer criminals to steal login IDs is “phishing”. Other methods involve spyware, viruses and simple “social engineering”. Stealing a login ID is so easy that even amateurs can be successful. Kits are available on the Internet, allowing amateurs to start their own “phishing attacks”.  These “spoof” websites are hosted by foreign ISPs  making them untraceable.  Log in ID theft is such a risk free crime that there is no deterrent.

A threat to the foundations

The foundations of the banking industry are based both on security and convenience. Banks exist because putting money in the bank is a more secure and  convenient solution than keeping it at home. Today, one of the pillars of the industry, security, is under attack:

According to the July 2004 report by Anti-Phishing Work Group, “phishing” is increasing by 50% per month. The primary targets are financial service providers such as Citibank, auction web sites like E-bay and ISPs like ATT.

According to the Gartner Group, identity theft cost banks $1.2 billion in direct losses in 2003.

However, banks are currently faced with a dilemma of how to improve security without sacrificing convenience: so far, there has been a trade off between security and convenience –enhancing one meant jeopardizing the other.

Banks and their customers need an effective solution to the challenge of online security that does not change the consumer experience nor the way business is conducted.

The solution needs to be invisible and hassle free to the consumer.

An ideal solution must also offer effortless installation by the click of a mouse and no additional hardware.

Privacy

Internet users are very concerned about privacy and rightfully so. A winning solution must respect the user’s privacy and must not allow others to misuse it to violate it.