Security flaws in online banking sites found to be widespread

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Sami Aronson-Unger [saronson-unger () amnh org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 5:40 PM
To: David Farber
Subject: Security flaws in online banking sites found to be widespread

Hi,
Perhaps for list?


Security flaws in online banking sites found to be widespread
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uom-sfi072208.php

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---More than 75 percent of the bank Web sites surveyed in
a University of Michigan study had at least one design flaw that could
make customers vulnerable to cyber thieves after their money or even their
identity.
Atul Prakash, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science and doctoral students Laura Falk and Kevin Borders
examined the Web sites of 214 financial institutions in 2006. They will
present the findings for the first time at the Symposium on Usable Privacy
and Security meeting at Carnegie Mellon University July 25.
These design flaws aren't bugs that can be fixed with a patch. They stem
from the flow and the layout of these Web sites, according to the study.
The flaws include placing log-in boxes and contact information on insecure
web pages as well as failing to keep users on the site they initially
visited. Prakash said some banks may have taken steps to resolve these
problems since this data was gathered, but overall he still sees much need
for improvement.
"To our surprise, design flaws that could compromise security were
widespread and included some of the largest banks in the country," Prakash
said. "Our focus was on users who try to be careful, but unfortunately
some bank sites make it hard for customers to make the right security
decisions when doing online banking."
The flaws leave cracks in security that hackers could exploit to gain
access to private information and accounts. The FDIC says computer
intrusion, while relatively rare compared with financial crimes like
mortgage fraud and check fraud, is a growing problem for banks and their
customers.
A recent FDIC Technology Incident Report, compiled from suspicious
activity reports banks file quarterly, lists 536 cases of computer
intrusion, with an average loss per incident of $30,000. That adds up to a
nearly $16-million loss in the second quarter of 2007. Computer intrusions
increased by 150 percent between the first quarter of 2007 and the second.
In 80 percent of the cases, the source of the intrusion is unknown but it
occurred during online banking, the report states.
The design flaws Prakash and his team looked for are:

0.      Placing secure login boxes on insecure pages: A full 47 percent of
banks were guilty of this. A hacker could reroute data entered in the
boxes or create a spoof copy of the page to harvest information. In a
wireless situation, it's possible to conduct this man-in-the-middle attack
without changing the bank URL for the user, so even a vigilant customer
could fall victim. To solve this problem, banks should use the standard
"secure socket layer" (SSL) protocol on pages that ask for sensitive
information, Prakash says. (SSL-protected pages begin with https rather
than http.) Most banks use SSL technology for some of their pages, but
only a minority secure all their pages this way.

0.      Putting contact information and security advice on insecure pages: At
55 percent, this was the flaw with the most offenders. An attacker could
change an address or phone number and set up his own call center to gather
private data from customers who need help. Banks tend to be less cautious
with information that's easy to find elsewhere, Prakash says. But
customers trust that the information on the bank's site is correct. This
problem could be solved by securing these pages with the standard SSL
protocol.

0.      Having a breach in the chain of trust: When the bank redirects
customers to a site outside the bank's domain for certain transactions
without warning, it has failed to maintain a context for good security
decisions, Prakash says. He found this problem in 30 percent of the banks
surveyed. Often the look of the site changes, as well as URL and it's hard
for the user to know whether to trust this new site. The solution, Prakash
says, is to warn users they'll be moving off the bank's site to a trusted
new site. Or the bank could house all of its pages on the same server.
This problem often arises when banks outsource some security functions.

0.      Allowing inadequate user IDs and passwords: Researchers looked for
sites that use social security numbers or e-mail addresses as user ids.
While this information is easy for customers to remember, it's also easy
to guess or find out. Researchers also looked for sites that didn't state
a policy on passwords or that allowed weak passwords. Twenty-eight percent
of sites surveyed had one of these flaws.

0.      E-mailing security-sensitive information insecurely: The e-mail data
path is generally not secure, Prakash says, yet 31 percent of bank Web
sites had this flaw. These banks offered to e-mail passwords or
statements. In the case of statements, users often weren't told whether
they would receive a link, the actual statement, or a notification that
the statement was available. A notification isn't a problem, but e-mailing
a password, a link or a statement, isn't a good idea, Prakash says.

###
Prakash initiated this study after noticing flaws on his own financial
institutions' Web sites. The paper is "Analyzing Web sites for
user-visible security design flaws." Falk and Borders are students in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
For more information on Prakash, visit: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~aprakash/

Sami Aronson-Unger





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