Online Billpay Provider Loses Control of Domains

An anonymous reader writes "Several sites are running a story about a domain hijacking at Checkfree, the largest provider of online bill payment services to numerous banks and credit unions. According to Network Solutions, someone logged in to the domain administration page using Checkfree's account, and redirected its domains to a site in the Ukraine configured to serve up malware to unsuspecting users." Things like this make me nervous about switching to otherwise-tempting online bill payment, but checks are dangerous, too.

Comments

Tax ramifications

[daemonenwind]

Each time I physically write out a check, there's a bit of mental bookkeeping that takes place. You can't sit down and write "One thousand one hundred ninety-eight and 32/100" without pausing for a moment to think, holy shit, that's X% of my paycheck.

This is exactly why people should have to pay income tax instead of having it automatically deducted.

If everyone actually had to write that fat check out, they might begin to care about elections and the state of the world.

Re:DNS Hijacking

[SeaFox]

You *do* realize that all of those banks allow an attacker to access your account without the keyfob, right? They just need to call the bank, impersonate you (often by simply using the password they keylogged in the first place) and claim they lost it (or just use the automated phone service at most banks, which accepts your password without the added key).

This seems to be what happens when any business tries to implement any sort of account security. It has to be made so it can be easily bypassed, or you end up with customers mad at the company because they locked themselves or relatives/family out and the company wont allow them to simply go through on their word they are authorized. It's like they don't know how to see how it looks from the company's point of view.

Build a better lock, and they'll build a better idiot.