Internet banking Security Issue

[rpk2006]

I want to get some guidance regarding the NetBanking which now almost
all banks offer. Please let me know whether doing transactions
through a VeriSign secured and 128-bit secured bank site is secure
or not.

I need to transfer funds to other persons, usually a big amount. Since
NetBanking feature is available I want to use it.

Some cryptographers have suggested me that they will not prefer doing
big bank transactions on net, how-so-ever secured the site may be.

Secondly, I want to store my bank account numbers and passwords
elsewhere on net as a PGP encrypted file. Is it safe too?

Who better than you can guide me.
Regards,
RP

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Securing a computer system has traditionally been a battle of wits: the penetrator tries to find the holes, and the designer tries to close them. � M.Gosser

 

[theoxyde]

If you are running through 128-bit SSL, this means that anybody watching your transaction sees only useless random data. This doesn't always mean the server is secure, only that the communications between you and the server are.

Most banks have very strong security on their websites, mainly because their business is keeping people's money safe. Most breaches are going to be because of things like stolen laptops with user credentials cookied on the machine (duh). Don't let your machine store your credentials.

To address your question about storing bank account numbers and such... PGP is, as its name would indicate, pretty good. I would personally use a stronger cipher, like 256-bit AES/Rijndael. Use a SHA-256 hash of a strong password as the encryption key.

 

[chiph]

The technology (PGP, AES, etc) is very good. Their one weakness is that people tend to choose very weak passwords. So you'll be fine as long as you don't use a dictionary word -- use a string of random letters, numbers & punctuation that you can remember, and you'll be OK.

Chip H.


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