Banking Online Securely?

1995: Hackers - Iain Softley

Financial Planning can be made easier by using online banking services, however, be warned that those seeking to part you from your money are never in short supply. The latest online hacking efforts are not easy to spot despite assurances from the Banks that having the latest software security will not necessarily prevent you from being hacked. The BBC report that  hackers are becoming smarter as the security software evolves. This is an item that you should read. 

I thought I would ask a couple of IT specialists for their thoughts. Nicholas Catcheside of PC Medicare says of the BBC report "The real threat comes if your browser is able (without you knowing) to modify what you see and do. This provides almost limitless potential for fraud and harm". Chris Aruliah who has been involved in security within financial services for the last 8 years says "Sophisticated malware will always pose a threat to online banking users. Whilst Banks have done a good job of protecting the "front door" (so to speak) using PIN sentry or other multi-factor authentication methods, once a user has a browser session open, it is potentially open to attack. This could happen by a user opening another browser session to an untrusted site and inadvertently downloading malware from that site (by clicking an image for example that runs a script in the background to download malware to the users PC)". Both Nick and Chris advise keeping your anti-virus software up to date and both mentioned that Macs are far superior for security and significantly less prone to being hacked.