The panic of the rabble and banking

[febbyfab]

And so people are frantically pulling their cash out of Northern Rock and dumping their savings anywhere they can whether it be in a tin under the bed or another newly opened bank account. The other banks must be loving this as attracting new customers is notoriously hard. Statically people are more loyal to their banks than their spouses! They

Comments

[silentbobuk]

I received one of those card readers things too, from Natwest, but I haven't had to use it yet. In theory the number generator is a good thing, but it's also inconvenient (do I have to carry it around with me at all times in case I want to check my balance or buy something online? At least my RSA token is small and helps me keep track of my keys for the office, who wants to carry a large card reader around in a pocket?), and doesn't provide much protection against things like screen captures of your credit card details by malicious software silently installed on your computer, or a BHO that sends received data back from the browser (from an encrypted connection) to an attacker so they can perform session hijacking using the cookie (some banks may check the source IP address, but I haven't tested this). The simple act of only asking for certain characters from your PIN and password helps achieve pretty much the same thing (the PIN sentry as an additional factor makes it marginally more secure), as someone trying to replay the login