12 steps to safer online banking
Gone are the days of balancing check books. The advent of online banking has made budget-keeping and bill-paying a convenient, if not automatic, transaction for adults managing their finances.
Which is why it’s a prime target for cybercriminals.
According to a recent study by Fiserv, 80 percent of U.S. households now do their banking online. The sheer number of customers is a likely attraction for threat actors. But what makes online bankers irresistible prey is that a breach results in direct access to their money—no need to bother with a ransom. That’s probably why more than 25 percent of malicious activity online is aimed at financial institutions.
“Mobile banking has a tighter ecosystem than desktop online banking and some technical advantages that improve security,” says Seth Goldstein, a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) with nearly 20 years of experience in banking IT. However, mobile banking isn’t foolproof. In 2016 (so far), Malwarebytes’ Mobile Intelligence Database has flagged more than 12,000 unique Android application packages (APKs) as banker
Trojans.
