Part II: Intruder Defense – Use Ubuntu to secure financial transactions online
Last month Brian Krebs wrote an interesting and informative article about E-Banking on a Locked Down (Non-Microsoft) PC for business owners, and outlined a tutorial on how to accomplish security online.
“In past Live Online chats and blog posts, I’ve mentioned any [sic] easy way to temporarily convert a Windows PC into a Linux-based computer in order to ensure that your online banking credentials positively can’t be swiped by password-stealing malicious software. What follows is a brief tutorial on how to do that with Ubuntu, one of the more popular bootable Linux installations.” – Washington Post, Security Fix blog
Receiving strong reactions from his readers, Krebs posted a rebuttal titled E-Banking on a Locked Down PC, Part II. He further demonstrated that the initial article was not directed at consumers, but at “small to mid-sized companies that may not have a full-time IT/security staff, and who rely on one or two people to handle their bank accounts and payroll online.”
Detective Inspector Bruce van der Graaf from the Computer Crime Investigation Unit (NSW Police) uses two rules to protect himself from cybercriminals when banking online: Never click on URLs to the banking site and avoid Microsoft Windows. — ITNews Great advice during the onslaught of Zeus and the the Clampi Trojan…
Adrian Kingsley of ZDNet upped the malware alert a few notches when he stated “It’s time to ditch Windows for online banking and shopping. There, I’ve said it.”
You can have all the security preventatives lined up in a row and quacking, but you can’t protect ducklings that choose to cross the freeway during rush hour traffic. Windows is currently the primary target of global malware authors. Tomorrow it could be Linux. Next week it could be Mac. Any operating system that connects to the Internet and conducts financial transactions is fair game. Since a larger % of Internet users employ the windows platform to do online banking, it is obvious that windows would be the operating system of choice for cyber-criminals to pursue today.
Recently I restricted online financial transaction access to one workstation and to specific websites on a standalone Ubuntu computer.
Read Part I: Intruder Defense – Become part of a Solid Internet Security Solution (SISS)
Until next time — Stay safe online!
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