Wells Fargo Enhances Online Security

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

This is interersting, for a number of reasons.

Without reviewing the "enhancements" Wells Fargo has made,
it is hard to say how effective they will be.

Having said that, however, one would be curious to know how
their determination of where & how users log in from (e.g. home,
work, on the road) might also become a stumbling block which
could erroneously lock legitimate users out of their ability
to do routine online banking functions.

Via The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

[snip]

Wells Fargo & Co. said Monday that it upgraded its online security
features to fight fraud.

The San Francisco bank is conducting real-time risk analysis that
determines whether customers are signing on from their usual locations
or whether someone is trying to fraudulently log on from a different PC
or place.

Another risk management system has been put in place to detect fraud by
analyzing transaction and session behavior.

[snip]

More:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/08/28/daily9.html

- ferg

p.s. Assuming you have heard the nightmarish stories of people
in the midst of international travel suddenly finding out that
tehir credit cards no longer work because someone (or something)
flagged theie account as "fraud suspicious" due to the fact that
some arbitrary "non-standard" purchasing pattern had been detected,
this extends that nightmare a bit, methinks. :-)


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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