This content is 17 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.
Identity theft worries me. It doesn’t stop me sleeping at night but nevertheless it does worry me.
It seems that each time I log in to a banking website the security has been “enhanced” with yet another item that I fail to enter correctly and then have to call the helpdesk to get my account unlocked – and I’m an IT guy… what about the “normal” users (they probably write down the details somewhere)!
Mark James has written an interesting article about this issue – and how the answer is really quite simple – if only the banks would apply the same security approach to consumer banking as corporates do for remote access.
Ironically, shortly after I posted this, my wife’s bank sent her a device that calculates a one-time code based on her card and her PIN. They still haven’t sorted out their arcane website security though…
…and on a related note, Guy Kewney has written a short sketch about what might happen if you tried to run some security checks on your bank (it may be fictional but I have tried something similar).