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Keep Two Bank Accounts To Beat Cyber Attacks, Says Bank of England Adviser (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Everyone should keep two bank accounts so they can still access their money if one bank is hit by a cyber attack, a former Bank of England adviser has warned. "I'd certainly rather have two [accounts] in case my bank was attacked. I would want to know I could still get money out of the other one," banking expert Peter Hahn said in an interview with BBC's Today, ahead of the Bank of England's latest Financial Stability Report. According to the report, cyber risk is one of the five greatest dangers facing the UK banking industry.
Always keep at least two accounts in two non-related banks in at least two different countries.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Fuck everything, we're doing five back accounts.
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systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Some 30 years ago the ATMs on the west coast went toes up. Seems a backhoe had dug up a line on the east coast, without that line ATMs didn't work. Doesn't the dumbass bank have redundancies, you ask? Turns out the dug up line was the backup. A week earlier a heavy snowstorm had collapsed the roof of a building that banks needed to run the network.
I've effectively got 2 banks: a credit union and a stock brokerage account I can pull money out of quickly.
The others:
1) Bankers
2) Banking
3) Lying
4) Cheating
Those aren't dangers - they're just business as usual
Would the good gentleman from the Cass Business School, also enlighten us as to where this extra money might be secured?
This is a perfect example of what happens when people who have more than enough money believe they are communicating with the rest of the world.
This advice is actually supposed to protect the banks, not the customers. If a bank is hacked it has to repay any losses you suffer. Say a business has its account locked and can't pay wages, or someone moving house can't pay for their new home and the sale falls through. The knock-on financial losses could be huge. Hundreds of employees having regular payments fail, black marks on their credit records that they have to get removed, a whole chain of house buyers falling apart, fees for late payments etc.
So if you have two accounts you can use the other one to make payments, thus lessening the bank's financial liability.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. Getting bank regulation that deserves that name
2. Not getting bailed out next time the gambling backfires
3. A country being able to pay back its debts and thus free to make a move on them
4. People catching on how things worked out for Iceland and Iceland becoming a role model
5. Anyone with some clout declaring "this bank is bankrupt". Because that can bankrupt any bank. No matter the size.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In order to have two bank accounts, one needs to have money. So, Peter Hahn, where do I get all this magic money you speak of? Working full time does not do it. Maybe you could give us all some so we can open multiple bank accounts?
All I need to make it happen are redundant paychecks.
a business has its account locked and can't pay wages, or someone moving house can't pay for their new home and the sale falls through.
It is unlikely that the business/mover will be able to keep enough money in both accounts to pay in the scenarios that you envision. Having two bank accounts gives you guaranteed access to at most half your money: it will normally work for getting some ready cash, and will often suffice for paying monthly bills, but not the really big items.
The other hazard is the other things that your bank keeps for you: all the payment details, amounts, dates that are used. The redundant bank (i.e. the one not normally making payments) is unlikely to have the facilities for storing this information for use in a failure - and you'll have to make sure it is all kept up to date. In the UK the direct debit scheme doesn't have a failover mechanism, so that won't work yet.
All of these issues are soluble, but just highlight that digital banking is built more on 19th century principles than 21st.
Owl tried to think of something wise to say, but couldn't.
Hi seems to be giving this advice in terms of personal banking and cyber crime but speaking as someone who has to juggle 3 different businesses I'm not sure if he would allude to this advice for business banking also. As far as I know we have the same protection as personal banks. currently I run 2 websites one based on http:www.freegaydatingworld.co... hs it's own account while the other 2 are in the same one. Presumably he is saying each of the entities should have 2 accounts each but this is pretty unworkable as it costs quite a lot business acocunts arent free while personal ones are here in the UK
Here in Canada, having two accounts means paying twice the monthly fees... That can easily be $50/month for the average person. I guess that's why the big banks posted $35B in profits...
Glad to see that our banks or innovating to add value to their shareholders.
Keep zero bank account and invest in a good safe.
"Cyber attacks" might be among the biggest threats to the banking system, but the banking system is the biggest threat to people's worth.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Keeping two or more accounts is good advice for keeping yourself out of trouble if a cyber attack happens, but I don't think this beats them. They still managed to steal your money and disrupt your life.
Why don't you just visit their site instead of making yourself look like a fool?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
What does it cost for a bank account in the UK? Are they pursuing collecting two monthy fees from each consumer?
What's wrong with cash? Or is that too independent / liberty-y for the brits? Using two banks just doubles your risks of card / account / user/pass getting stolen.
If you go the "two banks" route, check which core processor they use for their accounting first. In the US, there are about 5 companies that smaller institutions use to run their account and transaction data. If the breach is one of the core processors, you don't want to have your two redundant banks on the same processor.
Of all the things to worry about, "my bank was breached" is pretty low on the list. Do brits lack something like the FDIC / NCUA?
Just put your money under your bed, you'll get better interest rate, right now the real interest rate is negative. Don't use a bank, simple.
You still have to contend with inflation with cash.
With an account, you have fees.
In a lot of ways you are better off buying non-perishable commodities that you will use eventually. Most of the time the price goes up as somewhat of a hedge against inflation. That way you can purchase utility now for price X where it will be used when it is costing price X plus Y fudge factor.
Isn't this the same as raid for disk storage?
You run multiple disks spreading and duplicating data so that your availability is higher in case one (or more) disk(s) goes down.
For every disk you add, the chance that something will happen goes up, but the chance of you recovering your data can go up as well.
For your bank account I claim the same to be true. Two banks with different systems double the chance of you experiencing one that has a break-in.
Each bank may have different systems leading to different attack vectors.
You thus spread the money, getting less interest as you have less with each bank (interest level is often linked to ammount in steps.), and their liability if compromised is lower. I see the benefit from the banks perspective but not from yours.
But wouldn't that make you twice as likely to be attacked?
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Typical advice from an out-of-touch banker. This is impractical for those most at risk of serious consequences if their bank closes for a few days. It's not like getting an extra hard drive and copying your money to the backup bank. You have to split your limited assets and make sure you meet the minimum requirements of two institutions. And heaven help you if each requires you to have direct deposit in order to avoid monthly fees.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
A safe location? If even the bank is not a safe location, what do you think is a safe location? What if there's a fire? Somewhere safe where, for instance, it will all be instantly seized if law enforcement happened to figure out where it was? I mean you never know, your kid could be a pot smoker and they could bring drug/currency dogs to sniff around your house. And a large pile of cash would be instantly seized, because "everyone" knows only drug dealers and criminals have large piles of cash, right?
I mean, shit happens. Ask Copperfield. I'm pretty sure he still hasn't had that $2 million back.
I guess you could always have a safe deposit box in a bank. Oh wait...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
One day you'll meet the right woman.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
and worse, what if both banks "get hacked"?
I'd rather see banks spending money to make their systems secure, than take any effort to spead my risk. I'm pretty certain that any investigation of bank hacks will turn up plentiful examples of cases where the bank could have spent some time and money on protecting the assets BETTER.
So what exactly are the banks doing to earn their profit? Nothing much.
I'm an American, I don't hand any money in my bank account. Take that Cyber Criminals!
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Would assume that everyone has enough money to fund two bank accounts to the the level necessary to keep them solvent in the event of the inaccessibility of one of them ... must be nice to have that kind of money available.
I have one account with fiat money, one with Bitcoins.
And one with Dogecoins, one with Litecoins, etc.
"Just keep another bank account" smacks of "We can't promise you we abide by best practices" to me. So yeah. Why NOT 5 bank accounts? Why not 10? I say fuck all that, just give me ONE Bank that takes it's (and my) security seriously. One that has an active Risk Management Plan for when things start to go south. I don't think that's too much to ask, considering that my checking and savings accounts together don't make enough interest to account for inflation...
A cyberattack on a bank isn't going to keep you from accessing your safety deposit box.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Use a credit union. I'm getting 3% interest on my money market account.
I am completely insulated from cyber banking attacks, I don't need to spread my risk across 2 bank accounts, because 0 + 0 = 0
That advice seems really great for people that have tons of disposable income where they can split their assets like that. Meanwhile, the 75% or so of the populace that's living paycheck to paycheck is going to take one look at that and be like yeah...no. If you're barely making enough to pay the bills how are you supposed to fork your assets into two different accounts like that?
There have been times when I've had multiple bank accounts. However, eventually, one bank ended up buying the other, leaving me with two accounts at the same bank.
Ban general purpose computers. No computers, no computer crime: it's really that simple. Locked-down smartphones and tablets can fulfill all of a user's needs. I know not everyone has the scope to see this but eventually society will see the light.
I'd go a bit further and suggest, having listened to those wiser in the subject than I, that a multiple account scenario with using both banks and credit unions (preferring the latter) is a prudent thing to do if one wishes to maintain access in varied situations, avoid certain legal issues, or minimize risks. You don't get to choose what the holder does, necessarily, but you can act in your own self-interest.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
refer to several articles on Art of Manliness about 'antifragility'
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
I'm not worried about cyber attacks against banks.
I'm worried about the fairly regular bank outages.
They haven't hit my bank yet, but with cost cutting I'm sure it will eventually.
You use a vendor, or do it inhouse. The vendor writes the checks, you pay the vendor the value of the checks. If you do it inhouse, you just change the name and account number on the checks you print.Or you get an insurance policy that provides cash in the event of a bank failure.