Guaranty Bank is enhancing online security to protect customers from cyber thieves targeting online banking users of ACH and wire transfer services.
The innovative community bank in Springfield, Missouri, which reaches its 100-year milestone in 2013, is offering commercial customers IronKey's Trusted Access to give them secure access to the bank's site at the point most vulnerable to malware attacks -- the customer's PC. The industry analyst firm Gartner estimates that cybercriminals have robbed banks, businesses and municipalities in the U.S. of more than $3 billion using financial malware.
IronKey Trusted Access will be required for all cash management customers and offered to all business banking customers. Trusted Access allows the bank to meet and exceed new Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council (FFIEC) guidance with which all financial institutions must comply in 2012 to reduce the risk of online banking fraud.
"As a community bank, Guaranty takes pride in offering products and services that are custom fit for our customers' needs, saving them time and making the most of their investment," said Dana Montgomery, vice president and director of Corporate Services for Guaranty Bank. "With Trusted Access we know that our customers are protected against the latest attacks no matter what computer they're using for online banking. Trusted Access provides us a competitive advantage in promoting the bank and attracting new customers."
The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) estimates that 39 percent of all computers are infected with crimeware designed to steal account information. Today's anti-malware software fails to detect these threats at least 75 percent of the time according to real-time research from SpyEye Tracker(1). The FFIEC found these attacks compromise "virtually all forms of authentication." As a result, online banking account takeovers are growing at over 150 percent per year based on research recently published by FS-ISAC (Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center).
Trusted Access is offered to banks in a combination of software and cloud-based network services. The software can either be downloaded or run from a secure USB device. The Trusted Access Platform provides financial institutions with multiple layers of security integrated to dramatically reduce the risk of online banking fraud. Trusted Access launches a protected, virtualized operating system and Web browser that will only work with IronKey's Trusted Network and only allows the end user to access bank-approved sites using the secure browser. The secure Web browser protects online banking sessions from known and unknown crimeware. Unlike other approaches, Trusted Access assumes a client's computer is already infected with the latest zero-day attack that would go undetected by anti-virus and other software technologies. Even if a computer is infected with malware, the online banking session remains safe, secure and private.
"With IronKey Trusted Access, Guaranty Bank is providing its customers an effective means to prevent online banking fraud and meet the new FFIEC guidelines," said Arthur Wong, CEO of IronKey. "The bank is taking proactive measures to protect the bank's valuable reputation in the community from a problem that is costing the industry billions of dollars each year."