Mobile phones with SafePass help secure BofA online banking
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(InfoWorld) - Bank of America customers can now use their mobile phones toÂ make online banking more secure. This option comes as part of a new service called SafePass, which was unveiled Monday by BofA. Customers will be able to sign up for SafePass to add an extra level of security for some banking transactions. The SafePass system, which uses authentication technology developed by VeriSign, sends a six-digit code to the customer's mobile phone. The code can be used only once, and it expires 10 minutes after being issued, making it harder for criminals to steal money from BofA accounts. BofA customers can require this SafePass code for certain types of online banking activity such as transferring large amounts of money or logging on from a new computer. SafePass works in conjunction with theÂ SiteKey anti-phishing technologyÂ that BofA rolled out two years ago, said Mike Pennella, an e-commerce enterprise services executive with BofA. "This is really just another layer in our security strategy," he said. Unlike SiteKey, however, SafePass is not a mandatory feature, Pennella added. SafePass will be available to BofA customers in most U.S. states this week, with California users coming online later this month and some northwestern U.S. customers getting service even later than that, Pennella said. Next year, the company will also begin offering a credit-card-sized card, built by Innovative Card Technologies, that can be used to generate similar access codes without requiring a mobile phone. Bank of America believes that SafePass will help crack down on so-called Trojan software attacks. This type of malicious software is unwittingly downloaded by victims and often includes keylogging software designed to track username and password information and send it back to criminals. Other financial institutions, including ETrade Financial, Charles Schwab & Co., and eBay's PayPal subsidiary, have deployed similar "two-factor" authentication systems over the past few years. In fact, Federal guidelines have called for banks to use stronger authentication technologies for online banking since the end of 2006, but they have given the banks some freedom in determining how they achieve this goal. By requiring a code number in addition to the password, these systems make fraud harder, but not impossible. In fact, one noted security expert has long predicted that two-factor authentication systems will do very little to cut down on fraud and identity theft over the long term. That's because there are still other ways to access a customer's online banking session if an attacker has installed Trojan software on his computer, according to Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer with BT Counterpane. "It protects against "steal the password" attacks, but not against Trojans that make transactions in the background after you authenticate," he said via e-mail. "What I would want to know from the bank is: Who is liable for fraud when it occurs?" he added. "If it's me, I don't want the account or the token. If it's them, I don't care what sort of authentication they use."
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By Elwin Green, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  Feb. 4--This week's scam may be inoperative by the time you read this,  but on the Internet, one never knows.   The senders of the e-mail pose as BB&T Co., the Raleigh-Durham,  N.C.-based bank.
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Anti-phishing applications, smart cards, and new authentication technologies are vying for your support.
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How to steer clear of "free checking" pitfalls.
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Bank customers may soon be able to check their balances on mobile phone screens in an initiative from the Link cash machine network and Morse.
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Online giant teams up with RSA Security to keep users' account info safe.
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(InfoWorld) - Uncertainty about how to secure mobile phones in the face of increasing threats is slowing enterprise adoption of mobile applications, experts exhibiting at theÂ 3GSM World CongressÂ in Barcelona this week said. Over two-thirds of mobile operators in Europe that took part in a survey said that they detected more than 100 incidents involvingÂ mobile virusesÂ orÂ mobile spywareÂ in 2006, according to a study by conducted by Informa for security software developer McAfee. The number of European operators reporting more than 1,000 such incidents more than doubled in 2006 compared to the previous year, the report said. IT administrators, uncertain how to protect their users from such attacks, are unwilling to enable mobile access to applications for workers. "Enterprise security professionals haven't really worked this out yet," said Lorcan Burke, CEO of AdaptiveMobile. Companies such as banks, with strict security requirements, simply block access to any service, including Internet access, that could open doors to security issues, he said. At the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco, some of the most crowded events were those tackling mobile security issues, said Simeon Coney, vice president of marketing for AdaptiveMobile. That was an indication that IT administrators are trying to find out how serious mobile security problems are and how to address them, he said. Mobile services can be secured in the application, the network or in hardware or software on the device. Among operators responding to the McAfee study, most found that virus protection was most important at application and device levels, although more of them had deployed network-level security systems than the other options. Over 200 respondents from the operator community took part in the study. AdaptiveMobile makes network-level security products for operators, including a system for filtering viruses in e-mail, SMS (Short Message Service), MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) traffic. Beyond viruses, AdaptiveMobile can also control content, so it can stop phishing and other fraudulent attacks, or limit the types of content end users can access. If an operator has deployed AdaptiveMobile's platform, an IT administrator in a company can set and manage such controls down to the level of individual users. For the mass market, AdaptiveMobile's product allows operators to notify a user by text message if their phone becomes infected with a virus and offer a download, either for free or for a fee, to disinfect the device. Without such software, operators will replace a user's device or ask them to send it off for disinfection, both costly propositions. A network-based security mechanism offers some advantages over anti-virus software that sits on the handset, Burke said. Handset software doesn't prevent phishing and other nonviral scams. In addition, anti-virus software isn't compatible with all phones, making it logistically difficult for the software developers to tweak their products for each version of every phone and make sure to sell the proper software to end users. He calls anti-virus software on the handset "the minimum acceptable response. It's a tick in the box to make people feel comfortable." Some developers also sell security mechanisms that sit in the phone's hardware. Such solutions are ideal for organizations with very strict security requirements, such as government users, Burke said. One downside to the hardware-based solutions is that they take about two years to make it into a handset, he noted.
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Bank of America online customers will soon be able to use their cell phones and smart phones to check account balances, pay bills and transfer funds.
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In hopes of fighting Internet fraud, some online banking sites make customers use "virtual keypads" &#151; a method of entering passwords on the screen, generally with a mouse.
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Mobile phones are about to become the simplest and quickest way to transfer money across borders, under a deal announced yesterday by Western Union and GSM Association, the main mobile phone operators' body.
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(InfoWorld) - Mobile payments and banking are now moving into the United States through some big names, but the speedy checkout system is slow to put in place. VisaÂ and Wells FargoÂ have finished the first phase of a trial of in-person mobile coupons, payment by phone, and over-the-air account management, the companies said Wednesday. They ran that test inside Wells Fargo's Customer Experience Research Lab, and the next step, starting in the next few months, will involve 30 to 50 Wells Fargo employees in the real world. Only after that second phase will the partners sign up actual consumers for a test. That third phase, involving 300 to 500 holders of Wells Fargo Visa cards, is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. Some U.S. consumers, including Wells Fargo customers, are already using their mobile phones for banking tasks such as checking account information and transferring funds. In-person payments by mobile phone, already popular in Japan and strongly backed by Finland's Nokia, have taken longer to reach the United States. The payments require a specially equipped phone and a payment device located in a store, restaurant, stadium, or transit turnstile. Wells Fargo and Visa, like Nokia, plan to use NFC (near field communications), though a different system is used by pioneer NTT DoCoMoÂ in Japan. NFC is based on RFID and can communicate over a few centimeters, or users can just tap the phone against the payment device. At the heart of the system is downloadable client software developed by Visa, which is already in use in South Korea, according to Peter Ho, a vice president and product manager at Wells Fargo. The trials by Visa and Wells Fargo go beyond just tap payments. In the second phase of testing, the Wells Fargo employees will be able to receive, store, and redeem mobile coupons; monitor their credit or debit account activity; and manage their funds on the phone. They will make NFC payments at merchants equipped for Visa's payWave system, which today lets consumers wave their Visa cards in front of a secure reader. It's the first system in the United States to combine mobile banking and payments, Ho said. "The customer is going to expect to be able to do both," Ho said. The consumer experience only needs to be fine-tuned, and Wells Fargo and Visa are enthusiastic about the technology, according to Ho. It's the business model that needs to be worked out, he said. For one thing, no mobile operator yet offers an NFC handset to its subscribers, the typical way U.S. consumers get their phones, he said. The two partners are talking with carriers and with providers of mobile payment infrastructure to set up a system that's attractive to all, he said. Ho would not speculate when all those pieces will come together in a commercial service. Competing technologies are holding back phone payments, according to In-Stat analyst David Chamberlain. Everyone involved wants to know they won't be stranded with a system others aren't using. In addition to NFC, some companies are advocating the use of text messages or barcodes generated on the phone, Chamberlain said. The best thing Visa could do would be to convince one of its own competitors to also use NFC, he said.
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INTERNET banking users beware, there appears to be a new "phishing" method about.   The technique, which avoids most detection systems, works after you log on to an authentic site.
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No fees. No frills. Arkadi Kuhlmann has shown the world how to do online banking right. Now the trick is to stay ahead of the imitators
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Test in Usa: presi su eBay 10 cellulari usati di ultima generazioneSi Ã¨ riusciti a recuperare account e password bancari e un piano aziendale                                                  L'altra faccia degli smart-phone con il gran rischio della privacy
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Smart card vendor Gemalto will unveil a USB device at next week's RSA Conference that lets shoppers increase the safety of their online purchases.
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Many 'contactless' credit cards can allow their owner's name and card number to be read at a distance.
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Next, you could have a Motorola mobile phone with MasterCard PayPass to help you spend money faster. &quot;This is layering on more features to make the cell phone