Mobile Money – How To Protect Yourself From Online Banking Cyber-attacks

You will be surprised to find out that bank customers fall victim to malicious activity more often than banks do. In 2014 Kaspersky detected around 22.9 million financial malware attacks targeting 2.7 million users worldwide. Many people don’t install security solutions in their phones but those that do rely on generic antivirus products that don’t have dedicated defenses against complex financial attacks.

60% of computers that use the OS X operating system and mobile devices on the Android platform are equipped with basic security solutions, while one in ten Windows devices have no security software installed hence making people who use mobile money at risk. Kaspersky Fraud Prevention platform contains specific protection technologies that ensures users of online banking are safe. It includes two main subsystems for the protection of customers’ devices: a solution for Endpoints and a mobile SDK.

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Kaspersky Fraud Prevention for Endpoints works on the client’s side for Windows and OS X operating systems. It ensures that the environment for financial transactions is safe and checks the authenticity of websites using the following methods:

1. Performs a vulnerability check of the operating system and system applications
2. Scans the computer for financial malware
3. Analyses the bank’s web page opened by the client to determine whether it is a phishing site
4. Verifies the site’s SSL certificate through the Kaspersky Security Network
5. Opens the page in ‘protected’ mode to ensure that all personal data is protected against theft or modification
6. Prevents keystroke interception by allowing the use of a Virtual Keyboard that is displayed on the screen and controlled with the mouse.

1. It verifies DLL signatures locally in order to block any attempts to introduce malicious code into the browser process.
2. Blocks attempts to take screenshots
3. Protects access to the clipboard, where passwords or login data could be stored for some time
4. Activates the Secure Keyboard driver that protects data input from a hardware keyboard

The Kaspersky Fraud Prevention platform includes a Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows applications secured against online financial fraud to be created for Android, iOS or Windows Phone platforms. The online banking IT security specialists are free to equip these applications with various protection technologies intended to combat threats specific to each platform.

Benefits Of Kaspersky Fraud Prevention

1. The solution has been created by world-renown cybersecurity experts with a deep understanding of modern financial threats and banks’ needs
2. It reduces the costs of investigating incidents by preventing them in the first place
3. It can be operated alongside the bank’s existing security solutions as an additional, proactive layer
4. The methods employed in Kaspersky Fraud Prevention are developed with exceptional care for the user experience and exert minimum influence on user behavior
5. Kaspersky Security Network delivers the most up-to-date information, enabling protection from the very latest
   financial threats, even if they were launched in the Internet just minutes before
6. It covers most popular platforms and also offers client less protection
7. The endpoint protection solution is white-labeled and can be branded by a bank

Also read: Mobile Money declared illegal in Uganda