Comments on: Bank of America takes on cyberscams

Introduces security features designed to protect online banking customers against phishing, spoofing and spyware.

[Andrew J Glina]

Good Idea

I hope it is used elsewhere.

Bad Idea

I feel this is a bad idea because it is very easy to confirm whether or not an Online ID is valid for the system.

All someone has to do is randomly submit a string of characters (representing an Online ID) to the system, and if a SiteKey image and message is returned, the system has just confirmed that the Online ID is valid.

Of course, the Challenge Question may be the next line of defense, but I have typically found those types of questions to be trivial and can be easily guessed.

[George Cole]

Challenge Question

http://www.analogstereo.com/audi_allroad_quattro_owners_manual.htm

[directorblue]

A complete review of these countermeasures is here...

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2005/05/bank-of-america-takes-on-cyberscams.html

looks very confusing

i looked at the the explanation on the bank site (www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/passmark) and i think its confusing
on the one hand they ask me to cehck I see the correct sitekey before i enter my details
on the other hand they say that if i login from a diff computer, they will nto show me the sitekey but they will ask me for secret "confirmation questions" questions
how can i tell what to expect?
how do i rememeber what computers i already got a sitekey?
what if i log in from home, get a sitekey, and then a month later get an email at work, click on it, and get to the bank site. now i dont see a sitekey. how do i know if its a scum or not?

[WJeansonne]

Yeah, right genious

You are going to guess what I put under the picture of a teddy bear? One in quadrillion chances. LOL.

[garyinwintersca]

Bank of America will not supply an email address or contact for reporting phishing scams...a sophisticated new one arrived today which I have tried to report. If they are not able to stay on top of the latest scams; then how can we trust them with our business???