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Information Technology News Online banking users want more security
Information Technology News Online banking users want more security | Online banking users want more security |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Tuesday, 30 January 2007 | |
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And you might think it was also good news for the Commonwealth Bank, which announced on the same day plans to issue security tokens at no charge to around 30,000 selected, highly active NetBank customers. The Commonwealth Bank didn't identify its supplier - Australian banks are notoriously cagey about such matters - but the description of the token makes it sounds like RSA's product. Other customers will be given the option of receiving one-time codes via SMS to finalise transactions. This method is already in use by the National Australia Bank and is very suitable for markets like Australia which have a very high level of mobile phone usage, but still has drawbacks. A token is more convenient when travelling overseas, for example, and there are times when SMS delivery is far from immediate. Getting back to the survey, it turns out that tokens aren't especially popular with customers. Only 40 percent said they would like to use a token (down from 51 percent in a similar survey thirteen months earlier), while 39 percent don't like the idea - despite all those tabloid TV stories about the security or otherwise of online banking. Nine percent said they wouldn't use a token even if their bank made it a requirement. One idea that gathered a little more support was embedding a user-selected image in web pages sent from online banking sites as a way of allowing users to determine that they hadn't connected to a fake site. 56 percent would like to use such a facility, but curiously eight percent said it would make them feel less secure. So it seems that we want our banks to something to improve the security of online banking and we're willing to use authentication methods, but we don't particularly like the methods that are on offer. Where nine percent completely rejected tokens, only one percent were so wedded to the familiar username/password that they would change banks rather than use an additional authentication method. |
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