As a seasoned Internet Banking consumer, and owner of several current accounts from different High Street providers, I was comparing and contrasting the different customer experience on offer from these different providers with my colleague Steve Seymour from IPL’s Enterprise Technology Centre.

There is no doubt that that the “bad guys” are getting smarter.  One of my friends recently found out, to his cost (or more correctly the cost of his Bank),  that online security requires much more than simply keeping your PC up-to date with Windows updates and having the latest anti-virus software. In his case logging into his bank’s internet banking site via a saved favourite link was his downfall. Unbeknown to him, this had been altered to point to a look-a-like bank home page that siphoned off his credentials. With these, it was straightforward to log in to his bona fide account, make a faster payment transfer before logging him in to the regular bank site as if nothing had happened.  Luckily, his suspicions were aroused because of the relatively long delay between the log-in page and the “my account” page for his provider. His bank’s security is very poor, (but surprisingly it’s one of the main providers), fortunately most banks employ at least simple techniques to prevent a customer’s complete credentials being siphoned in this way. (more…)