14 DAY TRIAL // An interesting report published this week by Entersekt reveals that 85% of the over 2,000 US consumers polled by the company are at least somewhat concerned about online banking fraud.
Furthermore, 71% of them would consider moving to a different financial institution if they became a victim of such crimes at their current bank.
“According to RSA’s 2013 report The Year in Phishing, online banking fraud is a nationwide epidemic in which banks, who lost $1.5 billion in revenue last year from phishing attacks, are simply accepting losses instead of proactively adapting their defense,” commented Christiaan Brand, chief technology officer at Entersekt.
“What makes the issue complicated is the increased sophistication of hackers, but technology aimed at thwarting attacks has evolved too.”
While 58% of US consumers are at least somewhat willing to use their mobile phones to secure online transactions, experts note that the most common authentication systems, the ones that rely on one-time passwords (OTP), are not as reliable as they appear.
“The fundamental flaw these products share is that they continue to rely on browser-based communications back to the bank. Banks are in the unenviable position of having to juggle robust security with consumer demand for convenient access. OTPs deliver neither,” Brand noted.
Entersekt suggests an alternative. The company’s mobile-based application Transakt is an out-of-band two-factor authentication system that’s designed to secure transactions against phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks and other types of fraud.
It allows bank customers to allow or reject transactions outside of the browser.
The application uses digital certificates to make sure communications between the customer and the bank cannot be intercepted.
The company says its customers have completely eliminated online banking fraud after they’ve started using Transakt.