This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube video (WBZ News segment) titled "Online Banking, Is It Secure? Identity Theft Speaker www.IDTheftSecurity.com" dated November 3, 2008. The clip is a news report by Paula Ebben about a University of Michigan study (Atul Prakash) that found security/design flaws on many bank websites (notably insecure HTTP contact pages). The segment includes comments from bank customers, the researcher, and security expert Robert Siciliano explaining risks (page tampering, fraudulent numbers, potential theft) and advising consumers to monitor statements and take precautions.
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As more of us turn to online banking for convenience, we want to know our money and our information is secure. Well, tonight, Paula Ebbens shows us a new study raising questions about security and what we should be looking for in online banking.
From this— Thank you. —to this. 63 million households click to conduct their banking business. Convenient.
I can transfer money from one account to another. It's easy. It's fast.
How secure do you think it is? I think it's pretty secure. We haven't had any problems.
Well, I wouldn't use it if it wasn't.
Completely secure? The problems are fairly pervasive.
They apply to both large banks and small banks.
Atul Prakash, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, looked for flaws in the websites of more than 200 banks.
Almost three-fourths of the banks in our study had at least one of the design flaws.
What kind of flaws? For a web page to be absolutely secure, you need to see the letters HTTPS. In the address bar, the S being the key. If you only see HTTP without the S—
There is no guarantee that it's actually coming from your bank.
We checked the login pages for 4 popular New England banks: Bank of America, Sovereign, Citizens, and TD Banknorth. All of the login pages were secure. There's the HTTPS, which is good news, but according to security experts, not good enough.
When a bank builds a website, they should make sure that every single page, including the Contact Us page that has email addresses and phone numbers, is also secured.
So we checked the contact pages. Citizens Bank had the HTTPS and even asked if you want to see insecure information. But Bank of America, Sovereign, and TD Banknorth all had insecure contact pages. Security expert Robert Siciliano told me why this could be dangerous.
A criminal hacker can just go right in, they can make changes to that page, and you may actually be calling fraudulent phone numbers.
Money could be stolen from your account, your identity could be stolen.
Online banking is so convenient and commonplace, what can consumers do to protect themselves?
Paying close attention every single month to all of your statements, whether it's utility bills, your credit card, or your banking statements, making sure that there is nothing, you know, out of place.
Experts say online banking is safe, maybe even safer than paper banking, but it's important to know the risks and precautions in order to protect your hard-earned money. I'm Paula Ebben, WBZ News.
Now, all of the banks in our report insist their websites are very secure and that it is safe for customers to do their banking online, and they've provided us with statements about their security procedures. You can find those at WBZTV.com. Just click on Consumer.
