March 14, 2006 Americans Want Banks To Spy On Their Accounts By Gregg Keizer Courtesy of Nine out of ten Americans want their banks to their online accounts for signs of suspicious behavior, much as credit card companies do now, a survey published Tuesday said. Conducted by the poll also found that although consumers aren't seeing a rise in the number of phishing e-mails, they are increasingly wary of all electronic communiqués from their banks. According to telephone survey, 79 percent said that they were less likely to respond to from their bank because of worry over scams; that's up nine points from 2004, said RSA. A solid majority of 59 percent want their banks to contact them when something fishy is found, while 73 percent think banks should boost security by moving to a stronger scheme than the typical username and password. "Consumers seem to feel comfortable with the notion of their financial institution monitoring their online activity and contacting them when something suspicious is detected, just as they've become accustomed to [the same in] credit cards," said Chris Young, the general manager of RSA Cyota, in a statement. RSA, which has heavily promoted its in to financial institutions and end-users, also said the survey claimed consumers would be willing to use tokens if they were free (43 percent) and that they wanted graphical reverse-authentication indications on bank Web sites that the URL was legit (55 percent). Also called "watermarks," the concept relies on displaying a predefined image -- one the user defines earlier -- on the bank's log-in page to show the consumer the site is the real deal. But the largest number of respondents voted for a behind-the-scenes authentication that wouldn't make them exert themselves when they accessed their online banking accounts. This "risk-based authentication" requires the bank to judge whether the user is legitimate rather than the user deciding if the site is real. It relies on several factors, including log-on location, IP address, and transaction behavior to decide if an unauthorized person is trying to access an account. The poll also said that most users (65 percent) noted either no or just a slight increase in phishing e-mails. That jibes with the data from RSA's own monitoring, which tracked attacks at the 2,500 to 3,300 range each month for the past eight months, with only small monthly increases. E-mail This Story Print This Story Get the latest Messaging news, product info, and trends every week.			Spyware And Adware Continue To Plague PCs FTC Smacks Spammer With $900K Fine IM: Real-Time Securrity Problems For Financial Services Bot Herders Ready Attack Against Message Forums Researchers Warn Of Coming Tax Scams Microsoft Vows To Keep Pressure On Phishers     Messaging Pipeline's Main RSS Feed     Messaging Pipeline's Blog RSS Feed Editorial and vendor perspectives The Six Flavors Of Windows Vista Microsoft plans to release a full six-pack of Vista versions, one for every taste. Which Vista will be right for you? Hope is Not Enough When It Comes To Compliance Three Ways To Authenticate E-Mail And Stop Spam Wikis In The Workplace Review: Google Desktop 3 Vendors are now talking about how collaboration can be improved by integrating video with messaging applications. They're even talking about adding live TV to mobile phones. How far do you go before it becomes a bandwidth and business productivity drain? Video is a great idea     13% Video is fine but there needs to be size limits     25% It's never used for anything really productive     38% I draw the line at live TV     25% In search of messaging products? Check out our brand new Product Finder for a directory of groupware and collaboration tools, security products, archiving solutions, and more.