Keep your financial details out of hackers' reach
Banks are constantly upgrading the security aspects of internet banking, still online frauds are on the rise. Phishing, cloning of cards, hacking of passwords are the growing menaces in the online banking space. According to Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, globally 431 million adults experienced some form of cybercrime in 2011 with over a million falling victim every day.
As per the report, India is fast emerging as a soft target for organised cybercrime as four out of five online adults have been victim of identity theft in 2011. Banks have been recommending several precautions while transacting online, but the real problem lies elsewhere.
This relatively new trend is the result of internet's influence on easy information access, the report highlights. In other words, it is the availability of personal data on social networking platforms, responding to online surveys, use of pirated software etc. which are feeding the phishing attacks.
"An additional authentication for online transactions may ask for mother's maiden name. Today it is not difficult to get this information as people happily share personal information on social networking websites, online and offline surveys etc.
There is a plethora of options through which hackers or fraudsters can seek such data," says Ian Craig, managing director, CPP India.
USE PERSONAL INFORMATION SPARINGLY ON SOCIAL NETWORKS
Today, you cannot just disconnect from your old-time school friends or childhood buddies. Just be selective about the information you share on such portals. The idea is to use key pieces of personal information, such as PAN or driving licence number or family details, for impersonation.
"This information can be used to obtain credit/loans, merchandise and services in the name of the victim, or to provide the thief with false credentials," says Craig. Alternatively, you can change the privacy settings of your profile in such a way that only a limited set of people have access to your personal information.
BEWARE OF PIRATED SOFTWARE
Pirated software can play a spoilsport if they are injected with malicious codes (malwares) or viruses specifically meant to dynamically alter contents of the visited pages or user input fields, e.g. a net banking page asking additional fields such as credit/debit card number, ATM PIN, CVV details on a login page, which is never asked by any bank.
"The biggest risk in using pirated software is that there is no security upgrades available for them. This leads to the software becoming vulnerable, which can be exploited by the latest Trojans.
These Trojans can then steal customer information from the PC and transmit it to a fraudster," says Sanjeev Patel, executive VP and head direct banking channels, HDFC Bank.
Some counterfeit software might inject key loggers, bots, spywares which collect all the login credentials with keystroke entries or search locally for any password related files and send it to the fraudsters. The worst scenario is when you have downloaded the counterfeit software that may be infected with viruses that will damage your hard drive or cripple your network.
Bankers maintain that there is a huge possibility of such computers to have key logging software. That may compromise the overall quality of online banking.
There are software programs - Spyware and Trojan- designed to capture key strokes on a keypad. They have the ability to install key stroke loggers, and collect and report consumer's personal information to unwanted parties. These software make way to a system through some free downloads and easily break the firewalls if the software is pirated.
Banks are constantly upgrading the security aspects of internet banking, still online frauds are on the rise. Phishing, cloning of cards, hacking of passwords are the growing menaces in the online banking space. According to Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, globally 431 million adults experienced some form of cybercrime in 2011 with over a million falling victim every day.
As per the report, India is fast emerging as a soft target for organised cybercrime as four out of five online adults have been victim of identity theft in 2011. Banks have been recommending several precautions while transacting online, but the real problem lies elsewhere.
This relatively new trend is the result of internet's influence on easy information access, the report highlights. In other words, it is the availability of personal data on social networking platforms, responding to online surveys, use of pirated software etc. which are feeding the phishing attacks.
"An additional authentication for online transactions may ask for mother's maiden name. Today it is not difficult to get this information as people happily share personal information on social networking websites, online and offline surveys etc.
There is a plethora of options through which hackers or fraudsters can seek such data," says Ian Craig, managing director, CPP India.
Beware of Virus
Banking malwares (malicious software) are Trojans used by organised criminals to steal bank details to perpetrate fraud or steal directly from victims' accounts. A few important online banking malware are listed below:
Win32/Bancos is a family of datastealing Trojans that captures users' online banking credentials such as account login names and passwords. These Trojans send the captured information to the attacker by email or by uploading to an attacker's FTP site or posting on an attacker's website
Zeus Banking Trojan is also known as Zbot, WSNPOEM, NTOS and PRG. It steals credentials for various online services like social networks, online banking accounts, FTP and email accounts and sends this to the fraudster
What You Should Do
Keep Net banking passwords that are difficult to guess and change them regularly
Look for the padlock symbol on the bottom bar of the browser to ensure that the site is running in a secure mode before sensitive information is keyed in
Scan email attachments for viruses before opening them as these emails might contain virus or spywares.
When unsure about the source of an attachment, delete it
Activate privacy setting on social networking platforms
Customers should install a reputed antivirus on their PCs and ensure that the same is updated on a regular basis
What All to Avoid
Do not share passwords with anybody, including family members, relatives, friends or even employees of the bank
Never access the bank website from a link provided in an email or from any other source.
(ET26JAN12)
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