A staggering number of computers -- 25 percent according to the latest reports from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) -- are infected with banking Trojans such as ZeuS and SpyEye.
Criminals are using this malicious software to take over online bank accounts and steal millions from businesses and municipalities. As a result, Bank of North Carolina, a $2.2 billion bank headquartered in High Point, North Carolina, is proactively moving to protect its business clients before criminals can strike. The bank is now offering IronKey Trusted Access for Banking to help keep clients safe when conducting banking online.
With Trusted Access, BNC is moving ahead of its competition to provide customers an online banking experience isolated from financial malware. Unlike other approaches that play the losing game of trying to detect financial malware before it strikes, Trusted Access separates users and their banking sessions from their potentially compromised desktop and applications. Following recommendations of NACHA (National Automated Clearinghouse Association) and the FBI, BNC will provide its clients a dedicated environment for online banking using Trusted Access.
"IronKey Trusted Access for Banking gives our commercial customers exactly what the FBI and NACHA are recommending -- a dedicated, secure and isolated environment for online banking that's incredibly easy to use," said Bob Huckabee, SVP and chief marketing officer for BNC. "Our goal is to offer all the advantages of the latest 'high tech' services, delivered with the same 'high touch' attitude you enjoy when you visit us in person. Trusted Access conveys the same levels of trust and confidence for online banking as our clients receive by visiting a Bank of North Carolina branch office."
Cyber criminals have become so effective at hijacking PCs used by businesses for online banking that the FBI and others recommend dedicating a computer strictly for this purpose. By offering IronKey Trusted Access, BNC Bank has taken an important step to protect its customers from these threats and delivers the highest form of security available.
According to Dave Jevans, IronKey's founder and chairman, "The problem facing banks today has been out of their control -- it's the customer's own PC. What makes these threats so dangerous is they go undetected even with up-to-date anti-virus software, firewalls and other software-based security," Jevans explained. "Bank of North Carolina is moving ahead of their competition by providing IronKey Trusted Access to clients. IronKey Trusted Access isolates online access to a safe, bank-managed environment that assumes a client's computer is infested with the worst possible malware. IronKey provides a dedicated environment, independent of the PC that protects online banking customers even if their PC has been compromised with financial malware, including keyboard loggers, man-in-the-browser or 'backconnect' Trojans."
With Trusted Access for Banking, users simply connect their Trusted Access USB device to automatically launch a protected, virtualized environment. The Trusted Access Browser starts at the bank-defined home page and users can only navigate to bank authorized sites. To protect users from ever-changing malware that can't be detected by anti-virus and other software, Trusted Access for Banking does not rely on potentially compromised and vulnerable applications on the user's host computer. A secure, encrypted connection to online banking is made through the IronKey Trusted Network to lock out man-in-the-middle and DNS attack. Advanced encrypted keyboard input protects users from keyloggers while entering authentication credentials and other sensitive data.