Standard Bank has become aware of a growing number of cyber-crime incidents taking place at internet cafés and other public places that offer internet services. On Monday it urged customers not to use computer facilities that they are not familiar with.
Standard Bank IT security department has been tracking syndicates that target publicly accessible computer and internet terminals to steal customers’ secret account information, like PINs and card numbers in order to defraud customers.
Says Herman Singh, director: technology engineering at Standard Bank: “Syndicates are installing key logging software and hardware on unprotected computers. Customers’ secret access codes and other personal information are then gleaned from the computer. Syndicates are capturing information from internet-banking customers of all the banks.
“Standard Bank warns its customers and other internet-banking users to only do their banking from a secure computer, which has all the necessary anti-virus software and a personal firewall. We have provided this service free of charge to 50Â 000 Standard Bank internet banking customers for over three years now as a free download from our internet-banking website.”
Standard Bank remains, it said, committed to protecting the integrity of its customers’ credentials. However, customers also needed to ensure that effective security measures are taken and adopted when transacting over the internet. — I-Net Bridge