Standard Bank plans to provide its customers with free anti-phishing software. The new software will protect Standard Bank customers from divulging sensitive financial details to unscrupulous third parties when banking online, it says.
The bank hopes the software, called Rapport, will cut down on rising incidents of phishing — the e-mails, for example, purporting to be from your bank but which, in fact, come from fraudsters.
“Phishing globally costs customers and the financial industry billions of rands annually,” says Itumeleng Monale, Standard Bank’s director of self-service banking.
According to bank, in 2009 there were a total of 500 000 unique phishing sites identified on the Internet, with 294 financial institutions targeted globally. SA has not been immune to phishing threats on the Internet, with instances of phishing growing exponentially over the past few years, it says.
The Rapport software, which is developed by Trusteer, is used by international banks to secure about 6m customers’ browsers from financial malware attacks and fraudulent websites.
The software strengthens customers’ online security by locking down the connection between their computer and Standard Bank’s Internet banking site. It warns customers if they are directed to counterfeit sites.
The software, which is available from Standard Bank’s Internet banking website, also has the ability to inform the company of potential bogus sites so that its security division can take steps to stop the attempted fraud. — Staff reporter, TechCentral
- Image credit: Alex_Lee2001
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