For the survey, Avira polled its customers worldwide, with a random sampling of 3127 users responding. Only 20% of respondents said they feel secure with online banking; close to half of respondents who use online banking say they are concerned about security.
In an interview with Infosecurity, Sorin Mustaca, a data security expert with Avira, said that he was “surprised by the results” of the survey. “More than 30% said that they don’t do online banking. This was for us a warning sign”, he said.
“Our mission in the security industry is to make online banking really secure – to let people do what they want to do without caring about malware, spam, phishing, and so on. We took it really personally….It’s really an important sign for us. It also shows that the banking industry has a lot of things to do because it seems they don’t care about users. This is our impression”, Mustaca said.
Banks are not investing enough in technology to make online banking secure, he observed. “The banks are not doing much. That’s the problem. From time to time, we are seeing bulletins from banks saying, ‘Attention users, we are being attacked by phishing’, without really giving people a method to combat it. This is information that is being sent in vain, and it reaches almost nobody. People fall for these scams and they lose money. And this is not good for the people or for banks. Everybody loses.”
This lack of attention to security is true of banks, other financial institutions, as well as online retailers. “They all have information about phishing, about spam, about malware, but they are not doing something actively….We see every month the same thing happening. So if they had done something, we should see results. But we are not seeing that. This is frightening for everybody”, Mustaca warned.
“The people are simply overloaded with information that this or that can happen while you’re online, so their response is not to do anything online”, he added.
Mustaca said that security software vendors can help make online banking more secure. For example, Avira is giving away its anti-virus software for free to users, he noted. “Of course, we cannot offer everything for free. We also have to pay our bills.” Avira also sends notices to ISPs and banks when it detects a phishing scam or other criminal activity taking place.
The Avira security expert offered a number of tips for consumers to be safe online: always take great care when opening attachments in emails; do not visit sites which you don’t know or have a bad reputation; do not install programs coming from unknown sources; never give your financial details as a response to any email; be sure to install an anti-virus solution and make sure it is updated regularly; and make sure your computer’s operating system is regularly updated.