Banks need strong authentication desparately

Forrester Research is urging banks to adopt additional security to fight phishing and other forms of fraud, including strong authentication.

"Two-fifths of the European internet users who don't use online banking say they are holding back because they worry about security, according to a survey of nearly 23,000 Europeans by Forrester Research." - from the article on silicon.com The research also indicates that some people have stopped doing online banking because of security concerns.

"Banks should look to educate net users about security precautions, not let usability fears compromise security, deploy or strengthen two-factor authentication urgently, and collaborate rather than compete on security," according to Forrester.

Looks like the report was finished before Bruce Schneier's , which I have already discussed more than once already ;) previously. To sum, he misses on a couple of poinsts: 1. You can strongly authenticate the transaction as well as the session to avoid sessions hijacking and 2. There are other forms of strong authentication besides brain-dead hardware tokens that can fight DNS Cache poisoning and other man-in-the-middle attacks. We'll see if Forrester picks a fight!

You can also find the article on Out-Law.com