NSW
Police: Don't use Windows for internet banking
Consumers
wanting to safely connect to their internet banking service should
use Linux or the Apple iPhone, according to a detective inspector
from the NSW Police, who was giving evidence on behalf of the NSW
Government at the public hearing into Cybercrime today in
Sydney. The first
rule, he said, was to never click on hyperlinks to the banking site
and the second was to avoid Microsoft Windows.
Avoid
Windows Malware: Bank on a Live CD
The
simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don't use Microsoft
Windows when accessing your bank account online. I do not
offer this recommendation lightly (and at the end of this column
you'll find a link to another column wherein I explain an
easy-to-use alternative). But I have interviewed dozens of victim
companies that lost anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000 dollars
because of a single malware infection. I have heard stories worthy
of a screenplay about the myriad ways cyber crooks are evading
nearly every security obstacle the banks put in their way. But
regardless of the methods used by the bank or the crooks, all of the
attacks shared a single, undeniable common denominator: They
succeeded because the bad guys were able to plant malicious software
that gave them complete control over the victim's Windows computer. Why is
the operating system important? Virtually all of the data-stealing
malware in circulation today is built to attack Windows systems, and
will simply fail to run on non-Windows computers. Also, the
Windows-based malware employed in each of these recent online
attacks against businesses was so sophisticated that it made it
extremely difficult for banks to tell the difference between a
transaction initiated by their customers and a transfer set in
motion by hackers who had hijacked that customer's PC.
A capital Idea!
Unfortunately the solution
that Mr. Krebs so kindly provides provides is beyond the (perceived)
capability of most computer users. I'm trying to come up with a
solution that will require much less work by the user to implement,
Stay tunned!
This is a bit
dated, but it gives you a
good overview of the concept of disk-less computers
A bootable USB drive is
the way to go! I spent the better part of 8 hours trying to get the
Wubi package to install. I can build a bootable USB drive in 13
minutes.
Detective Inspector Bruce van der Graaf from the
Computer Crime Investigation Unit told the hearing that he uses two
rules to protect himself from cybercriminals when banking online.