Identity Protection Services:
Perimeter offers an industry leading suite of identity protection services that include anti Phishing and Pharming services to protect the most valuable asset to any financial institution - its customers.
The Importance of Maximizing Depositor Trust When Transacting Online
Whether it's "Trust your car to the man who wears the star" or "In God we Trust" on U.S. currency, trust is the watchword of good relationships between providers and consumers. In addition to causing billions in actual damages and billions more in reputational damage, the world's computer hackers are eroding consumer trust in online enterprises. While half of America's consumers trust their online bankers and identity protection programs, nearly half say they'll move offline upon experiencing a security breach. The loss of that consumer trust, and the cost of acquiring or reacquiring depositors, can be measured in the millions of dollars, even to a small Financial Institution.
These are among the many elements that can impact depositor-banker trust:
A Security Breach: The Financial Institution has been compromised and sacred, confidential customer data has been, or has the appearance of, being mishandled. In the majority of cases, an attack like this is typically a result of a Pharming attack.
Loss of data: The Financial Institution has misplaced data or had its customers' data stolen in transit, either in stored media or files sent over the Internet. This type of loss can be handled through secured data handling and the protection provided by secure socket layer (SSL) technology encryption.
Client Fraud: This type of loss occurs when an institution's customer is tricked into supplying their user name and password to a false site that they think is the real thing. Attacks like this are typically what we refer to as Phishing or Pharming attacks.
To maximize its consumer trust and identity protection, FIs must clearly demonstrate their ability to safeguard bank and customer information assets. Diligent Financial Institutions spend considerable resources to secure these assets, whether they are cash or checks stored in a foot-thick steel vault or bits and bytes securely protected on a server or in a database. The range of protection measures obviously includes hardened physical facilities, vaults, secure back rooms, and the like, as well as powerful network and data security tools.
Modern-day threats, unheard of in the days of Jesse James, have evolved as the new generation "techno bad guys" break through the well-guarded network to obtain confidential customer data through the oldest of all techniques: fraud. These techniques involve the time honored tradition of Phishing and Pharming.
Definitions of items that can be avoided using identity protection services
Phishing and Pharming Defined
Phishing attacks try to attract an unsuspecting individual to inadvertently visit a false web site to input their personal information (including login credentials, account numbers, social security number, contact information, even their mother's maiden name), thinking they are visiting a legitimate website operated by their trusted financial institution. The data is then used by the "phisher" for financial gain. In many cases the attacker sends out what appears to be an official email from either the institution itself, or from some other well known organization (such as eBay, Paypal, or the government), and asks the recipient to click on a link where they're asked for an online banking user name and password.
The email may even suggests that the site is experiencing technical difficulty or is being upgraded and points to a link required to access one's online banking account. Attackers are "phishing" for the customer's information, and using a simple announcement (that seems important, official, and implemented by the institution itself) as bait. Corporate logos, colors, and graphics are used with impunity. Once the hacker has the customer's personal information, they then use it to take either small or large sums of money out of the customer's account, sell their identity, or worse.
The impact of Phishing is significant. Most recent available figures from the Federal Trade Commission indicate that $50 Billion was lost to phishing attacks last year alone - and it's clearly on the upswing from there.
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