Slashdot Mirror
Banks, Wall St. Feel Pinch from Computer Intrusion
An anonymous reader writes "Financial institutions and companies in the securities/futures business are reporting sizable increases in the amount of losses and suspicious activity attributed to computer intrusions and identity theft, says the Washington Post's Security Fix blog. The Post obtained a confidential report compiled by the FDIC which analyzed Suspicious Activity Reports from the 2nd Quarter of 2007. SARs are filed when banks experience fraud or fishy transactions that exceed $5,000. The bank insurance agency found that losses from computer intrusions averaged $29,630 each — almost triple the estimated loss per SAR during the same time period in 2006 ($10,536). According to the Post, 'The report indicates that the 80 percent of the computer intrusions were classified as "unknown unauthorized access — online banking," and that "unknown unauthorized access to online banking has risen from 10 to 63 percent in the past year."' Another set of figures analyzed by The Post looks at similar increases affecting the securities and futures industry."
That's what you get when you put beancounters in charge of computer security, a WHOLE LOT of shortcuts in the name of cost savings which lead ultimately to insecurity.
root@127.0.0.1
I'm in IT Operations for a bank in EU.
/Crafack
We spend a sizeable amount of both time and money securing systems against outside access.
The problem as reported in TFA is in the end-user zone. Malware, trojans etc. are used to steal identities og businesses or persons.
True, most of these problems could be mitigated (for now) if the banks switched to some kind of one-time-pad system, but apparently for now the cost of the system are greater than losses due to attacks.
... Elecance is left to the implementors.
I call BS. There's a lot they could do to increase security for banking. How about actual 2-factor authentication. Something you know, and, something you know is not 2 factor authentication. Try something you know (your password), and something you have (those little RSA tokens). If they implemented those RSA tokens that spit out a new number every 60 seconds, they could stop almost all the phishing scams. Yet they refuse to do anything to actually even offer the more secure option. I'd pay for the RSA token out of my own pocket if it meant my money would be more secure.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Isn't this problem limited to the USA because their banks use only user/password for authentication?
I know the procedures for 5 or 6 banks in 3 different European countries, and all of them require a lot more to authenticate me.
The 3 procedures are:
* Bank 1 (the simplest, and first system I have seen, some 10 years ago).
- authenticate with user id (unrelated to name or account number) and password
- be prompted to enter a one-time number from a list which I received by postal (registered) mail (it asks for the number at row x, column y)
All other banks have long moved to something like the 2 others:
* Bank 2.
- put a special card received from the bank into a special calculator also received from the bank and enter password
- enter user id (unrelated to name or account number) on bank web site
- receive a one-time 6 digit number and type it into the special calculator
- the calculator gives an 8 or 10 alphanumeric one-time password to enter into the web form
* Bank 3.
- I can't remember the details, but as with bank 2, there is a special device and procedure to follow involving password, user id, device id and one-time numbers exchanged between the device and the bank's site.
- On top of that, the bank sends me an email every time I connect, with the date, time, the IP address from which I connected, and the money operations performed if any.