As new capabilities evolve through technology, so do new opportunities for hackers and thieves to compromise a customer’s data. These technologies stand as a major threat to a bank’s customers. In addition to general concerns of reputation and customer loyalty, banks should not forget they have certain expectations of helping keep customers informed about threats to online security and protective steps that can be taken.

Evolving Threats

One malware program that chillingly shows how far these programs have come (and is recently getting significant press for this) involves literally stealing money from a customer’s account under his or her nose. Once downloaded, the program first takes the customer’s login information for internet banking. After stealing the customer’s password, this program begins transferring money from the account to the thief’s account – a scheme which has been done before. The catch is the program also intercepts the code coming from the bank and manipulates it. That means, when the customer refreshes or relaunches his or her account page, the numbers remain the same. So, to the customer, his or her account looks untouched. All the while, until the customer logs on to an uninfected machine or realizes something is fishy (be it because none of his or her recent transactions start appearing or his or her debit card starts getting declined), the cyberthief can escape and cover his or her tracks. Just like crime in the real world, the longer the thief has to flee, the tougher he or she is to catch. Therefore, given the nature of this program, prevention is the only effective solution.
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