You could take a wild guess what this post is going to be about. If you guessed phishing, then you are right on the money. It is the Christmas season, which means people love going to new e-commerce stores for the best prices and giving away their credit card numbers without a second thought. But online banking, should people stop using it?

Every holiday season we get stories about the dangers of e-commerce and pitches from vendors about how they address those dangers.It appears that many experts are on the side of recommending against e-commerce altogether. Just too dangerous. I was recently involved in a discussion on the famous Funsec security list with several security experts who argued the same thing about online banking.

I would argue that the benefits of online banking, and e-commerce for the most part, are so huge that forgoing them is an overreaction. The right way to approach the security issues with online banking is to be aware of them. This is, sad to say, a lot to ask of the average Dick and Jane on the Internet.

As is clear from the Funsec discussion, the problem is basically one of e-mails. While there are cutting-edge moves into other media, the overwhelming majority of phishing attacks are initiated through a fake e-mail. The experts in the discussion were upset at legitimate e-mails from banks that bore serious resemblance to phishing attacks.[more]

Tags: Computer Protection, Scams