Banks boost security against cyberthieves

If it hasn’t already, your financial institution probably is making it a little more difficult for you to bank online.

It may be as simple as asking you to change passwords and log-on names to include a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as a numeral or two.

Some are “fingerprinting” computers, allowing banks to note changes in what computers customers use to make online banking transactions or inquiries. Also, some banks are asking customers to identify a photo — of a pet, for example — as a way to gain entry into the system.

Consumers like Susan Hartgrave of Satellite Beach, Fla., a customer of Washington Mutual, couldn’t be happier with the additional security measures for online banking.

“It’s wonderful to be able to keep up to date on your accounts and to transfer money from one account to another when you need to,” Hartgrave said. “If banks want to make extra steps to make the system more secure, I have no problem with that.”

Financial institutions are bolstering their online-banking security measures after the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council last fall called for a review of their procedures to make sure they’re secure.

Part of that is because banking customers are able to do much more with their accounts these days — automatic payments, transferring money to pay bills, etc.

“Online transactions were not particularly risky when the most you could do was go into an account record and move money around inside the account,” said Timothy Antonition, executive vice president of retail operations at Melbourne, Fla.-based Space Coast Credit Union. “Once you can send money out of an account, as with a bill-payer transaction, the risk increases.”

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council consists of five federal agencies, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

If online-banking systems at certain institutions are found to be inadequate — and aren’t changed - monetary fines will be issued, said David Barr, spokesman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“We expect banks to perform a risk analysis, and, based on that risk analysis, provide an extra layer of security by the end of the year,” Barr said.

The most common attack is through what’s known as “phishing,” hackers send e-mails resembling official correspondences from banks or credit card companies, and then gain access to people’s personal identification information when the individuals reply.