For generations, U.S. consumers have relied on banks to bear the primary responsibility for keeping their hard-earned cash deposits out of the hands of thieves. Now, banks want consumers to share the load.
About 80 percent of U.S. households have come to do their banking over the Internet, banking consultancy Novantas says. Many consumers believe online banking is every bit as safe as branch banking. But that’s clearly not the case, banking and tech security specialists say.
Cyberattacks against individual online accounts have become so sophisticated and pervasive that the American Bankers Association (ABA) is now asking consumers to “partner” with banks to keep cyberrobbers in check.
The banking industry wants consumers to monitor their online accounts for unauthorized transactions on a “continuous, almost daily, basis,” says Doug Johnson, the ABA’s vice president of risk-management policy. That’s because PCs and smartphones have become “the online bank branch for a lot of individuals,” he says. “The customer needs to really recognize that security is most effective when they work in partnership with their financial institution.”
This shifting burden has come about because of developments that the banking industry did not anticipate a decade ago, when it began promoting personal computers as convenient venues for consumer banking. Ambitious online attacks soon followed. Banks have spent heavily to shore up cyberdefenses, and they’ve kept a policy of reimbursing individual online account holders who can verify that they’ve been ripped off, Johnson says.
Even so, cyberrobbery has evolved into a multifaceted, multibillion-dollar global industry that shows little sign of cooling. Last year, the number of malicious software programs designed to pilfer online bank accounts — referred to as banking Trojans — rose to 65,098 in December, up from 4,295 at the start of 2009, according to Panda Security, a Madrid-based anti-virus software supplier.
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