Resources

 I’ve been using online banking for ten to fifteen years and have never had an issue. In fact, once you try online banking, you’ll never want to go back to the old way of banking. I have several bank accounts and only one of those has an actual bank building. While I like the service and rates that I receive from virtual banks, I do like having the option of going to a branch in an emergency.

However, even my brick and mortar bank offers online banking so I rarely need to go into the building. I pay all of my bills online as well as download all transactions into my computer banking software. I can transfer funds with a click of a button and schedule future transactions.

But, what about all of my personal information being sent across the airwaves and the Internet? Is it safe? I’m convinced of it. Besides, in my community, we have a row of banks along the interstate that are regularly robbed. By avoiding these banks, I’m reducing my risk of being caught in a bank robbery shootout!

The financial industry uses sophisticated tools and encryption to ensure the privacy and integrity of their customers’ data and transactions. If you’re considering online banking for the first time, take a look at your bank’s Web site and search for their privacy policy. This policy tells you exactly how they work to protect your personal information. For example, Bank of America has an entire section dedicated to Privacy and Security with policies as well as information on how to further protect your personal information.

Banks are implementing further security measures to prevent others from trying to crack your code. For example, ING Direct uses a visual keypad on the screen. Rather than keying in your code, which could be intercepted by keyloggers, you click the corresponding key. In addition, many sites, ING Direct included, use a “site key” or image that you preselect. If you visit the bank’s Web site and your image does not display, then you know that you have been redirected to an imposter’s web site.

Banks are also blocking out portions of your account number from view. This means that even if your computer falls into the wrong hands, the bad guys won’t necessarily be able to figure out your account number.

In addition, one-time passwords are becoming popular. For example, PayPal offers a “security key” which is a physical device that generates temporary passwords that can only be used with your account. Bank of America has a service where they send temporary passwords to your cell phone.

Financial institutions understand how critical security is and have made banking online safer than ever. You can even stop receiving paper bank statements in the mail, further reducing banking fraud.

Like all secure transactions, you should get in the habit of looking for signs that you are on an encrypted page such as the padlock symbol displayed in the status or address bar as well as the “https” prefix of the URL.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds have become increasingly popular in recent years. Through the use of a reader such as Google Reader, you can have content automatically delivered to you according to your preferences. Microsoft’s Windows Live Mail, which replaced Outlook Express, has a built-in RSS feed reader as well, making it easier than ever to subscribe to content. But are RSS feeds safe?

Depending on how many feeds you subscribe to, you can have hundreds of incoming feeds each day. While this is overwhelming on its own, you should be aware of the potential dangers that RSS feeds pose.

First, RSS collects content from a variety of Web sites and delivers it to subscribers. For example, you might subscribe to an RSS feed that delivers financial information to you. Rather than visiting your favorite financial Web sites each day, the RSS feed gathers the information and delivers it to your feed reader, personalized Web site, or e-mail inbox. The danger here is that the RSS feed could pick up comments left on source sites that contain malicious code. The RSS feed and related Web sites may be trusted but the comments section could pose a threat.

IT security experts caution that as RSS feeds become more popular, they’ll start to attract hackers. While as RSS becomes more prevalent, you can bet that hackers will begin exploiting the technology to their advantage.

Among the major security concerns surrounding RSS are feed manipulation with JavaScript or HTML tags, cross site scripting, cross site request forgery, SQL injection for RSS feed manipulation, and a lack of encryption. Hackers are highly skilled at bending technology to their will. Both server and client ends of the RSS feed chain can - and will - be exploited.

How do you protect yourself from malicious RSS content? Start by subscribing to trustworthy RSS sites but be aware that the content provided may not be completely trustworthy. User generated content can contain malicious code, even if the Web site is trustworthy. Next, arm your computer with real-time monitoring software to block malicious content when found. While anti-virus and anti-spyware applications can solve problems after the fact, those with real time monitoring will prevent the problems from occurring in the first place.

You’ll notice that Filetonic.com offers RSS feeds. For example, if you are interested in PC Performance and want to be alerted with recent Filetonic posts in this category, you can subscribe to the Filetonic Performance RSS feed. We review all comments before allowing them to be published, which prevents unwanted spam and malicious code.