Internet banking fraud and spyware in SA

Two step authentication is a must, and not via SMS. That is the only secure way to do banking, period.
 
MKFrost said:
Two step authentication is a must, and not via SMS. That is the only secure way to do banking, period.
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Did you even read the article? 2 way auth wont save you when a trojan on your pc uses the codes you enter and in the background change the destination accounts you make deposits to. You need to have your pc clean for that, the 2 way auth just helps that someone doesnt do transactions with only your username/password.
 
While the existence of such malware is alarming, Absa’s head of digital channels and payments, [highlight]Adrian Vermooten, said that from the forensic investigations they’ve done, South African Internet banking users have remarkably clean computers.[/highlight]

“A lot of South African customers have anti-virus,” Vermooten said, adding that South Africans tend to be good about keeping their computers protected.

“I think it’s also because we have a relatively small Internet user-base in SA that are very informed about anti-virus,” he said.

According to Vermooten, this means that the vast majority, if not all cases of online banking fraud they’ve seen in South Africa, was due to the victim responding to a phishing attack.
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This Vermooten guy must think we are all stupid and buying into his absolute BS, just take the quote I have highlighted and dissect it a bit.

  1. ABSA does not perform "forensic investigations" on every South African Internet Banking users' computer
  2. ABSA would only be performing forensic investigations on the computers of ABSA's fraud victims
  3. Vermooten states that ABSA has found that the computers of (most if not all of) ABSA's fraud victims, are remarkably malware free and well protected by anti-malware software
  4. Vermooten states that while there is a relatively small Internet Banking userbase in South Africa, the users "are very informed about anti-virus"
  5. Vermooten states that ABSA's fraud victims, who are so very well informed about the need for anti-malware measures, and that are good at keeping their computers protected and uninfected, are simultaneously incredibly stupid that they fall for phishing scams

The majority of ABSA's fraud victims are likely to be using Windows on their PCs (hence the need for anti-malware software).

If it is a Windows PC and it has been exposed to the Internet, it will eventually get infected with something nasty, even if anti-malware software is installed and updated regularly, and there will probably be traces left behind to suggest that the PC was once infected with something nasty.

Has Vermooten considered the possibility that whoever ABSA is paying to conduct these so called forensic investigations, does not actually know how to perform a forensic investigation or is too lazy to do so?

How does Vermooten explain that ABSA's fraud victims are clever enough to keep their PCs remarkably malware-free and at the same time dumb enough to fall for phishing scams?
 
j4ck455 said:
This Vermooten guy must think we are all stupid and buying into his absolute BS...
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It was not aimed at you, it was aimed at the other 90% of the population who falls for BS like this just because its ABSA and or a senior manager of XXX company saying so, so it must be true. Who are you to argue....

PS: Fully agree, his statement, in my opinion, just shows the total disregard there is for the safety of their online clients.
 
Being on OSX or a Linux system means trojans and spyware would not be an issue for you. I only do my banking on my iDevice or my OS X system. That with two step authentication I believe is pretty safe.
 
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