Is Online Banking Safe? How Do Banks Protect Your Information?
Reading Time: 4 minutesMost of us use online banking, but are such accounts secure? Here’s how financial institutions keep your data safe on the internet.
Online banking has made our lives easier by making it simple to transfer funds, pay bills, and keep track of your spending with just a few clicks. But is online banking actually safe?
Online banking is very secure, despite the increase in cybersecurity threats worldwide. Banks use various advanced security and monitoring techniques to protect your information and your assets. So what are the key security measures that online banking systems implement to ensure that your digital banking experience is safe?
1. Data-Encryption Technologies
Financial institutions must encrypt data while it is in storage and in transit, according to a requirement set forth by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council of the United States. Every bank must use end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which converts all data into a string of unreadable numbers before sending it over the internet.
Encryption protects users from a wide range of cyberattacks, primarily man-in-the-middle attacks. Banks use a range of strong cryptographic algorithms, such as DES, IDEA, RC4, and others. However, 256-bit AES encryption—which is considered unbreakable, even in a hundred years or by the fastest computer—is the industry standard for bank-level encryption.
Hackers are after your Personally Identifiable Information (PII), which includes your credit card number, passwords, addresses, and even your name. Your data is sent using a public key and private key encryption exchange. These keys are only available to you and the bank, so only you two can decrypt the data.
When you log into the bank’s website or mobile banking system, the session is encrypted using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. That way, no other person can pry into your session activity or the information stored in your bank account.
2. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI)
A study by Imperva found that financial institutions experienced a 30 percent increase in Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks between 2019 and 2020. DDoS attacks, business email compromise attacks, phishing attempts, and ransomware are all constant threats to banks.
Financial services use a proactive technology called Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) to identify both ongoing and emerging cyber threats to their assets. A threat intelligence system involves numerous operations, such as collecting, processing, and analyzing data from an organization. It can offer information on the key traits of potential bank cyberattacks and even the main cyber trends impacting the global financial sector.
The data is presented to the relevant senior level, such as the IT management, to address current threats and prevent future data breaches. In the case of a data breach, a threat intelligence system enables banks to act quickly and efficiently while also recovering compromised data.
3. Secure Infrastructure
Infrastructure security lowers the overall risk of operational disruption, as well as internal and external damage. Banks’ infrastructure is equipped with several cutting-edge technologies, including firewalls, vulnerability scanners, log collectors, and intrusion detection systems.
This infrastructure is secure on both the hardware and software levels. Firewalls filter incoming and outgoing traffic to prevent unauthorized access to the bank’s private network. Traffic is filtered according to IP address, service request, and even filters previously set by the bank. The firewall can block malicious software from being installed on the bank’s computers by an attacker.
Moreover, banks use User Behavior Analytics (UBA) technology to avoid insider attacks by cybercriminals or workers. By analyzing data sets to find unusual system activity like double logins, access from several places, and more, UBA makes it simpler to detect accounts that have been hacked.
4. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Measures
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) isn’t just available to you. In fact, financial institutions have it everywhere, especially in their core banking systems and application databases. Banks no longer use passwords and PINs because passwords can be shared with third parties. As a result, most MFA solutions provided by banks to their workers are typically password-free.
The safest MFA method is biometric authentication, which verifies a feature unique to the user, such as a fingerprint, voice, palm print, or iris scan. If the biometrics don’t match, the system recognizes that the user is not who they claim to be and forbids them from logging in.
Unlike One-Time Passwords (OTP), biometrics cannot be stolen even if someone has access to or possession of the user’s device.
5. Antivirus and Anti-Malware Protection
In order to detect and block viruses from gaining access to their computer network systems, banks use multiple antiviruses. Antivirus software recognizes and removes advanced threats, such as ransomware and infected attachments. These security suites offer details about the virus’s malware family, version, variant, and specific risk score.
The specific information is given to the security team, who deal with the issue and cut down the dwell time of malware. Financial institutions routinely update and maintain their antivirus software, as outdated versions may be unable to detect the most recent virus signature. Malware can sometimes go undetected if antivirus software isn’t powerful enough.
6. Automatic Logout
When there is inactivity in your bank account for a set amount of time—usually five minutes—you will automatically get logged out. It’s a safety precaution to stop someone from accessing your account if you forget to log out or your device is lost or stolen.
Applications use session expiry to protect users against cookie or session hijacking. Hackers can gain access to your account by stealing cookies during a site session. The cookies are deactivated after a brief period of inactivity, making it hard for the hacker who stole the cookie to log in as well.
The less time you spend in your online banking session, the less chance you give hackers to log in again and steal any data.
Use Online Banking Without Worrying
Your assets, personal information, and transactions are safe when done online, thanks to the security measures adopted by banks. Yet hackers never stop coming up with new ways to carry out their malicious activities, so the need for more security and power in banks will only grow.
On the other hand, it’s critical that you regularly check the security of your bank account on your own and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/is-online-banking-safe-how-banks-protect-information/
Ref: makeuseof
MediaDownloader.net -> Free Online Video Downloader, Download Any Video From YouTube, VK, Vimeo, Twitter, Twitch, Tumblr, Tiktok, Telegram, TED, Streamable, Soundcloud, Snapchat, Share, Rumble, Reddit, PuhuTV, Pinterest, Periscope, Ok.ru, MxTakatak, Mixcloud, Mashable, LinkedIn, Likee, Kwai, Izlesene, Instagram, Imgur, IMDB, Ifunny, Gaana, Flickr, Febspot, Facebook, ESPN, Douyin, Dailymotion, Buzzfeed, BluTV, Blogger, Bitchute, Bilibili, Bandcamp, Akıllı, 9GAG