Its amazing hos phisers manage to crack into On-line banking sites, obtain user authentication details and siphon money. Multi-factor authentication, bio-metric identification and enhanced security will go a long way in minimising/preventing such happennings.
Most banks across the globe are tightening their user authentication mechanisms which can broadly be divided into 3 levels:
1.What you Know, ie, your User ID & password
2.What you have, ie, Digipass, tokens, grid card etc in addition to the user ID & password
3.What you are, ie, bio-metric ID-retinal scan, thumb impression, voice recognition
Of the above most banks have level 2 in place but implementing level 3 has a lot of technological & strategic issues. Though it is highly secure, it is very costly & complicated. Banks of the future will rely more on level 3 user authentication mechanisms
as they are almost fool proof.