Major Financial Groups Share Data To Fight Online Theft

smitty777 writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting on some unprecedented steps being taken by major financial institutions to combat online theft. The initiatives include a new type of data center that would be used to analyze bank data for potential security threats. Additionally, a quarterly round-table between the rivals to attack security issues was proposed. The article notes that 'security threats are pushing the big banks to do something that doesn't come naturally for these secrecy-steeped institutions: share information with one another.' A video at MarketWatch digs into it a little bit more, and points out that the banks will spend an estimated $1 billion on protection this year, which represents a 12% increase. Technologically, there has been much discussion of two-factor authentication to improve security. In fact, security officials in Singapore are even hinting at biometric solutions."

Criminals rejoice!

[Majik Sheff]

The banks have decided to consolidate their weak IT policies into a convenient one-stop shop for attacks!

No longer will you have to break into a half-dozen banks to get the personal information of millions!

Re:Criminals rejoice!

[Gideon Wells]

It all comes down to how it works.

Right now you have many companies who have differing levels of protection. This would be akin to each state being in charge of its own military. Ideally, by pooling said resources a better overall military/defense could be formed. Redundancy removed, funds freed up for more high level prevention.

Of course, that is being optimistic. Pessimistically, they'll agree to combine all their funds, use 10% (90% to bonuses for thinking of this savings) of it for this venture, outsource it to a company in India, who outsources it to China, who out sources it to South Korea (which gets linked to North Korea and sold to Russia), who out sources it to a vocational school in Seattle.

Biometrics - pushing the bank's risk onto you...

[rtfa-troll]

Biometrics; great; Like in Mexico, they will take your hand if you are lucky. If you aren't lucky, the bank will have some kind of life detector which will check if the hand is alive. In that case the gang just takes you along with your hand and then disposes of both together after the crime. With the exception of the situation where there's a guard actually checking that the ID system is being used right by a single person, what could be stupider than using a security token you can't change.

Biometrics? Again?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Biometrics must be the 'security' concept that combines the worst features with the best wiz-bang sci-fi aesthetic appeal... I can only assume that it was invented during a sort of 'product blackjack', where a group of players competed to see who could come up with the most awful ideal that could still be successfully sold...

"Hey guys, I'm trying to build a truly awful security system. Can anybody think of something like a password, only absurdly hard to change voluntarily, occasionally changed traumatically by forces beyond the user's control, and preferably left in traces all over the place during the course of daily life? Drinks are on me if successfully compromising it for one institution renders it strongly likely that it will be compromised across a large number of unrelated ones simultaneously!"

unprecedented steps

[devent]

How about the consumer and unions come together and take unprecedented steps to combat theft by banks and the Wall Street? First they commited fraud in multi-billion dollars, then get the money from the tax payers to not get bankrupt and now forcing the Europe and the USA into a degaced long recession by austerity and anti-labor politics.