The bank is supposed to be a safe place where people can place their money. With all the technological innovations and advances mankind has made, the security systems of banks have supposedly evolved into complicated affairs where no identity thief or pretexing scammer can penetrate.
Supposedly.
July 1st of this year however, Citibank announced that there was a breach in their system — a breach that had netted identity thieves millions of dollars by stealing other people’s PINs. With this recent news, bank clients should be agitated. For one, PINs are, in theory, one of the most secured elements of any banking transaction. And two, they never even needed to touch an ATM to get the money out. It is also worth noting though that the ATMs are running on Microsoft software, which allows the terminals to be remotely diagnosed through the Internet. This is what the pretexting thieves capitalized on.
There is no doubt what these people can do. Rack up the cash from other people’s accounts and stash them somewhere while their victims wonder where their money went.
Identity thieves and pretexting schemes are indeed a real threat. If they can infiltrate bank servers, what’s stopping them from getting not just other people’s finances, but their identities? Fortunately, the system can be changed. That is, if the powers that be do accept the mess they are in and do something about it. Otherwise, identity theft and pretexting will be a big and booming “banking” business.
Trilegiant’s The National Card Registry can protect you from credit card fraud.
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